March 2011 – Page 2

Input on Bay input

And we’re not talking the pretty input of a mountain brook, either – it’s more like overflow from a clogged commode.

This is something I didn’t know about Jim Pelura; he has a little more than a layman’s grasp of the controversy behind septic systems here in Maryland. Let’s just say that there’s a far greater cause of Chesapeake Bay pollution not being addressed.

Pelura wrote in an e-mail to me:

The pending legislation centered around septic tanks is another example of Annapolis putting emotions ahead of science in lawmaking.

To listen to Governor O’Malley and his supporters in the Maryland General Assembly, one would think that septic tanks are the major contributor to Bay pollution. They have consistently ignored actual data from the Maryland Department of the Environment concerning the cause of over-nutrification (pollution) of the Chesapeake Bay.

In 2005, as a Trustee of the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation, I explained in a letter to Ms. Kim Coble of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation that, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment, close to 700 million gallons of raw or minimally treated sewage was dumped into Maryland waterways in 2004 and over 400 million gallons in 2005. I also indicated in that letter that the Maryland Department of the Environment has been aware of this situation, and in 1995 cautioned that antiquated and poorly maintained sewage treatment plants were a major cause of Bay pollution.

While the situation is improving, unfortunately this trend continues to today, with sewage treatment facility malfunctions being the major source of pollution to the Bay.

The recent numbers for sewage spills due to malfunctioning treatment plants are: 20 million gallons in 2008, 98 million gallons in 2009, and 97 million gallons in 2010.

According to the Patuxent Riverkeeper, the Dorsey Run Waste Water Treatment Plant in Anne Arundel County (just one example) had 24 violations between 2005 and 2010. Records show that, between July 2003 and June 2009, problems at this facility and in the sewer pipes leading to it caused sewage spills totaling about 2.2 million gallons of raw sewage. A further 11 million gallons of partially treated sewage were discharged when the plant failed in October 2007. According to the Riverkeeper, “there are a potpourri of buggy, outmoded and troubled industrial facilities and wastewater plants that exist by virtue of state-issued permits that are regularly violated and that the State rarely enforces.”

It is up to all of us to insure that our waterways are kept clean and free of contaminants, including sewage.

We can do this by insisting that our elected officials from both parties promote legislation based in fact and on science instead of popular opinion.

Blaming those folks with septic tanks is not only wrong but indefensible. (Emphasis in original.)

Yet what is the solution the state desires? Hooking future developments up to new or existing sewage treatment plants!

We have a situation in Salisbury where the wastewater treatment plant still isn’t performing properly, even with expensive upgrades that local ratepayers remain on the hook for. Obviously adding to the problem by hooking up even more homes and businesses isn’t going to help fix the problem, so apparently the solution is to not have new development at all. (Sorry, biology won’t permit us to address the root cause. We all have to eat.)

There are times I suspect that the true aim of these radical greenies is to depopulate large rural areas of the state so the creatures of precious Gaia can move about freely, and eliminating the prospect for development can accomplish that goal through attrition. Imagine the economic chaos which would ensue here if Perdue moved away – aside from the area immediately around the university, Salisbury could well look like Detroit if that were to occur. They couch it as ‘farmland preservation’ but in driving around the area I see a lot of rural places where crops aren’t grown – it’s either stands of forest or wetlands.

To those people who fear our area looking like MoCo or the Baltimore suburbs, I assure you we have a LONG way to go before we even come close to that density. It ain’t happening in my lifetime.

So Pelura’s right: before we start taking development rights away from our area of the state as well as rural areas around the bigger cities, perhaps the state should address the problems with the system in place. Adding development and jobs to the state will help in that respect by bringing in revenue that could work to fix these treatment plants; sadly the General Assembly seems more intent on making the state even less business-friendly and spends far too much effort debating unimportant issues like gay marriage.

I realize that upgrading the system will cost billions and maintaining it on an ongoing basis will cost even more. But it’s a relatively legitimate function of a state or local government to treat wastewater and combat the spread of disease, as long as they keep the process and regulation as simple and basic as possible to achieve desired results. Cleaning up untreated sewage shouldn’t require multiple volumes of rules and regulations to do a basic task: filter out the solids and neutralize harmful bacteria.

As it turns out, Mother Nature has a pretty good method for doing this on its own – otherwise we would become violently ill simply by drinking well water. As someone who has drank well water for much of his life, I think I’ve made it through without adverse effects so the rest of us can too. There’s no need for reinventing the wheel just to get rid of less than 1/10 of the problem when Pelura identifies a much more target-rich environment.

Boda wins Council poll again

Perhaps this is more reflective of the preferences of my readership than of the actual future election, but Muir Boda was the choice of those who responded to my Salisbury City Council poll. In the real vote earlier this month, Boda finished fourth.

The conservative lean of my readership is also reflected in who the bottom three finishers were, as they all tied.

There were just 62 votes cast, with the lower number expected when I changed the poll rules a little bit to discourage frequent repeat voting. I may relent on this slightly for the next version, but the results were pretty much what I figured they would be.

Here’s the order of finish:

Muir Boda – 18 votes (29.03%)
Orville Dryden – 15 votes (24.19%)
Terry Cohen – 8 votes (12.9%)
Bruce Ford, Laura Mitchell, and Tim Spies – 7 votes apiece (11.29%)

Truthfully, when I advertise Boda and have been critical of Tim Spies in this space, I got the results I figured I would. But I’m going to do one more poll before the election, tweaking things a little bit more and perhaps utilizing Two Sentz’s blog to help weigh results more to the center.

Harris: “I support an ‘all of the above’ energy approach”

This found its way to my inbox yesterday from the office of our Congressman:

(Yesterday,) as a member of the Natural Resources Committee Rep. Andy Harris participated in a hearing focused on America’s rising energy prices. Oil prices have recently passed $100 per barrel for the first time since 2008. Gasoline prices have increased 77 cents since this time last year. According to an analyst from Cameron Hanover, there is an additional cost to consumers of $4 million dollars per day for every penny increase in fuel costs. Last week, Rep. Andy Harris sent a letter to Secretary of Energy Steven Chu requesting immediate action on rising fuel costs.

“Too many times during past energy crises we have failed to act definitively,” said Rep. Andy Harris. “I support an ‘all-of-the-above’ energy approach that emphasizes American-produced oil, natural gas, clean coal, and nuclear, and renewable sources such as solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal. This approach will lower prices, create new American jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil, strengthen our national security and raise revenue to help tackle the $14 trillion debt.”

A recent Congressional Research report indicated that our combined recoverable coal, oil and natural gas reserves total 1.3 trillion barrels of oil equivalent – the largest in the world. In addition to these resources, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates oil shale reserves could be greater than 1.5 trillion barrels of oil. These numbers indicate that we have the resources to produce our own energy and the latest technology to do it safely. We should strengthen our national security by ending our dependence on foreign energy and create American jobs while doing it.

So that’s what he said; here’s what I have to say.

Unfortunately, Andy, you can send a truckload of these letters to Steven Chu’s office and all you’ll get is a forest’s worth of dead trees. He’s truly gulped a large pitcher of the global warming Kool-Aid. For all his talk about embracing nuclear power despite the Japan crisis, for example, we haven’t seen much action toward building new plants in the last two years – or the last fifteen, for that matter (the last new U.S. nuclear power plant came online in 1996.) Instead, the Obama administration is hot and heavy into forcing our nation to adopt solar and wind as renewable energy sources. They only prefer ‘some of the above,’ ignoring the fact that we have a mature market in fossil fuels and supplies, as you point out, are still plentiful. (They’re the government’s own estimates, for gosh sakes!)

Would it be possible to be completely energy independent? Perhaps, but I think the more realistic goal would be to depend only on one or two outside sources. Just cutting out the need to ship oil across the ocean would be a boost, and that may be doable since Canada and Mexico export a large percentage of the oil we use across their borders with us.

But it’s interesting to note that much of the advancement and infrastructure in the oil and natural gas industry is funded by the industry itself as opposed to the government, while the inverse seems to be true for wind and solar power. After all, what market would the offshore wind farms proposed off Ocean City have if it weren’t for government putting a fat finger on the scale?

So Harris is relatively correct in his assessment, although I’d love to have some followup on what he sees as government’s proper role. Certainly he has solid facts and figures, but Andy needs to share what specific solutions he would advocate in each area in order to address this crisis. The more it depends on the private-sector market, the better I’ll probably like it.

Conway, Mathias join O’Malley in electric rate hike bid

It’s more than just the regular hot air coming from Annapolis – in this case, they want to mandate that it turns a wind turbine.

Proponents of a wind farm off Ocean City say electric rates could ONLY increase $1.44 a month for residential electric customers, but others claim it could be more like $3.61 per month. Or it could be much, much more – what government-sponsored plan ever comes in on time and under budget?

Included in that group backing the rate hikes are Delegate Norm Conway and Senator Jim Mathias. They are respectively co-sponsoring House of Delegates and Senate measures that will force utilities to purchase power from a offshore wind farm which could be on line as soon as 2016, according to a recent Washington Post story by Aaron C. Davis and Steven Mufson. Never mind that:

the project will produce power at 16.4 cents per kilowatt hour (the average going rate is about a dime.) I thought wind was free!
O’Malley’s former Chief of Staff, Michael Enright, is spearheading the effort for one company to secure federal leases. No conflict of interest there, move on, there’s nothing to see…
The last line of the Post story: “Banks consider the projects high-risk, so developers are seeking Energy Department loan guarantees to bring down financing costs.” Can you smell the pork? I can.

Contrast this with O’Malley’s approach to extracting the proven and much less expensive natural gas reserves at the opposite end of the state, our small portion of the Marcellus Shale formation. He’s supporting a moratorium on natural gas permits until August, 2013. (A bill dubbed the “Marcellus Shale Safe Drilling Act of 2011” is also in both the House of Delegates and Senate; notably, none of the co-sponsors are from the affected area. Instead, it’s the usual gang of limousine liberals, mainly from MoCo.)

If it wasn’t already crystal clear, this is more proof that O’Malley and his environmentalist wacko friends are just a bunch of liberal do-gooders who would love to saddle the average consumer with much higher energy costs. Even if they wouldn’t love to do so, their actions will create the situation of making Maryland even less industry-friendly than it already is, if that’s indeed possible.

A far smarter approach would be to leave the wind farmers (who ironically are leasing territory originally intended for oil exploration) twisting in the wind and let the natural gas companies do what they do best out west in the Maryland panhandle. Considering unemployment in two of Maryland’s three far western counties was above even the national average in December, they sure could use the jobs that natural gas exploration would bring.

And I’d rather have jobs in the hand now than those pie-in-the-sky green jobs in the bush, perhaps three years down the road (if they ever come at all.) The electric ratepayers of Maryland, who already get about 3% of their power from natural gas, would be thankful as well.

As for the duo of Conway and Mathias, well, we see where their loyalties lie. Sure, there could be some temporary job creation as these windmills are built, but those rate increases are much more permanent. It’s worth noting that Delegate McDermott isn’t signed on so apparently he stands with the ratepayers and not the special interests and friends of O’Malley. But I repeat myself.

Newt answered that question…

I love it when I’m ahead of the curve.

A few days ago I pondered the following as part of this post:

It’s going to be interesting to see what kind of push there is for something along the line of the ”drill here, drill now, pay less” campaign that got Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions group on the map.

Lo and behold, in my weekly update on everything Newt I read this:

As we see gas prices inching higher again, we think it is time for the return of Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less to fight the Obama administration’s war against American energy.

That’s why we’re re-launching Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less with a brand new website.

Please visit americansolutions.com/drill, sign the petition, and tell your friends, family, and co-workers about our effort.

The new website also has a number of tools to help our nation to drill here and drill now. You will be able to use the website to get key facts and information about the importance of domestic drilling, contact your Congressman and Senators, write a letter to your local paper, and get a “Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less.” bumper sticker for your car.

It’s just a slight variation of domain name from the 2008 effort, but the idea is the same. (It even leads to the same site.) Even after Congress allowed an offshore drilling ban to expire later in 2008 we haven’t made much progress in the last three years thanks to the occupant of the Oval Office.

As many recall in the 2008 campaign, the conventional wisdom six months out was that high gas prices could become an issue in that November’s election. Instead, we ended up pretty much with Tweedledum vs. Tweedledee as the Presidential race insofar as energy policy was concerned (Sarah Palin did the most to keep the drilling issue alive, but she was only a vice-presidential candidate) and the steep decline of the economy in September of that year actually make a difference in the respect that oil and gas prices returned to a more affordable level – therefore, the issue went by the wayside in discussions about TARP and bailouts.

At the moment, we stand even further away from the 2012 elections – needless to say, a lot can change in the course of a week, let alone 20 months. A week ago when I wrote the NozzleRage post, the Fukushima nuclear plants were intact and the Japanese were living life as normal – in the Japan disaster’s wake the price of oil plummeted sharply.

Even so, it doesn’t mean we should abandon efforts to secure our own supplies. While some say we have but a tiny percentage of oil reserves, they conveniently forget that much more is locked away by shortsighted federal restrictions on land use. American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Jack Gerard recently opined:

The administration is well on its way toward creating higher gasoline prices for Americans.

To get more oil and gas, we need more access. Placing more government lands and waters off-limits and forcing companies to focus on areas that may show little promise even if already under lease will not solve our energy challenges.

The best thing the administration can do on gasoline prices is to encourage greater oil production and greater fuel efficiency here at home.

While I’d personally prefer the market set fuel efficiency standards, I agree with Gerard on the idea of encouraging more drilling. For example, the Bakken Formation in North Dakota has an estimated 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil – ramping up production there could easily make a dent in the 616 million barrels of oil we imported from the Persian Gulf in 2009. Even better, oil shale in Western states could hold up to 1.5 trillion barrels of oil. With that, we could fill up our Ford Explorers on the cheap for years to come and break OPEC’s back.

All it takes is some people with the stones to tell the environmentalist wackos to pound (oil) sand. Unfortunately, we don’t currently have that leadership in Washington and it may be ten years or more before this bears fruit – remember, we have to get rid of activist liberal judges who place the interest of critters over creators.

So we may be stuck with high pump prices for now – but the groundwork needs to be done for future prosperity. What we said three years ago still holds true – drill here, drill now, and pay less.

Keeping the Promise rally in pictures, text, and video

This will be quite the multimedia post as I have plenty of material to go with my observations.

The parade of unionistas was slated to begin at the Navy stadium, so there were staging units set up at that location.

Buses were ready to take the protesters down to Lawyers Mall.

We also parked at the stadium but we opted to take the city’s shuttle downtown. Our little band arrived onscene about 4:30, and a few hardy protesters were already there.

There were instructions given to us by organizer Ann Corcoran, mostly dealing with where we would be placed. Once the street was barricaded, we could go off the sidewalk.

We were shunted off to the side, adjacent to the House of Delegates office building. Meanwhile, the unions were busy getting their site built.

They also had their own security, dressed up in fluorescent orange vests.

By 5:30, people were beginning to congregate in Lawyers Mall. Remember, we were placed well behind and to the side of the venue.

But the busses dropped off some protesting teachers and others where we were standing. It made for some interesting interaction.

This video was shot when the Baltimore City teachers arrived. Notice how the union security positioned themselves, watching our group.

This was our message, in part.

And while they had preprinted Astroturf signs in varying colors, mostly saying “Keep the Promise,” we had more creativity. Here’s a series of our posters.

This lady was two-sided.

Pictures convey a message too.

So do socks.

We are a union too?

But some of their side had a little creativity too.

In the last picture, the gentleman was talking to an enterprising high school reporter who was collecting a lot of information from both sides (he had been among our group earlier.) Needless to say, there was a lot of media there.

That crew from WJZ in Baltimore alternated sides between theirs and ours. But if you got passionate, they would find you. Watch this.

This guy was a squeaky wheel as well. I think he was in my Baltimore teachers video above.

I even got my picture taken by AOL News (see update below.) They interviewed our side too, so we can’t complain too much about the amount of coverage.

And we are pretty media-savvy to boot.

In case you’re wondering where all the people came from, bear in mind that busses continually arrived and dropped off 50 or so people, like this group.

By 6:00 Lawyers Mall was comfortably full.

But the main group arrived a little after 6. The picture is the front of the parade, while the video is about 8 minutes’ worth of them passing by.

The lady with the upside-down sign amused me, but the number of kids was disheartening. Talk about being used as props.

Once they arrived, the speakers started (not that we could see or hear anything from our vantage point) and the two sides were separated. That’s where some of the fun I detailed above began.

Aside from words, though, there was no violence. There was even some capitalism among union ranks, like this guy selling buttons.

I have Wisconsin solidarity – I stand with Governor Walker.

Nor was it just a button seller. There was someone pushing hard-line socialist books (took the picture but it didn’t come out) and at union events it also seems the LaRouchites come out.

He was passing out a flyer talking about a general strike and return to Glass-Stegall laws, along with exhorting us to combat the British conspiracy. Yeah, those people are sort of nuts so it was just the right element for them.

And while it wasn’t as bad as other rallies, there was plenty of trash!

You know, no one got us a chicken sandwich for dinner! Sounds like a sweet gig – maybe that’s why they got several thousand. Gee, you would think the Koch brothers would have plied us with free food.

But the biggest question I have yet to hear the answer for is: what was the promise? It’s unfortunate that the unions and government colluded to tell workers the gravy train was never-ending but the money isn’t there. We can’t provide 40 acres and a mule, either. And our message was clear: “state workers yes, unions no.”

As a matter of fact, if the teachers were upset about how they’ve been treated in our recent budgets, they have only one person to blame: Martin O’Malley. In Maryland, try as they might, Republicans can’t cut the budget because the Democrats control the purse strings – our budget maximum is set by the governor and any Republican ideas for frugality don’t make it through the Democratic-controlled General Assembly. So if teacher pensions are in trouble, they are blaming the wrong people and party.

In all honesty, we knew we would be horribly outnumbered: the old game show 1 vs. 100 had nothing on this. Surely some on the other side were in it for the free food, and others thought they were making a point or even sticking a thumb in the eye of the TEA Party. But all the bloviating doesn’t change the reality that we are simply out of money. Raising taxes isn’t the solution because the returns will constantly diminish – just look at what occurred when we enacted the “millionaire’s tax.” Instead of raking in millions, we lost money.

But take away the free food and bus trip, and I wonder how many would have still shown up to stand up for an outmoded system that has outlived its usefulness. We drew several dozen people to speak our minds without any of those advantages, and may have done better had the protest occurred on a weekend. (A lot of those who might be on our side were also in Annapolis, but they were present for the March for Life. One of those riding with us came for that specific event and didn’t stay at our rally.)

One final aside: I was told that Delegate Maggie McIntosh, a strong backer of the gay marriage bill, lamented the demise of the bill and compained that if six additional Republican delegates hadn’t been elected last year the bill would have made it through. More proof elections mean things and our votes make an impact, even if we have a small minority in the General Assembly.

We had a tiny minority yesterday evening, too, but the truth and facts are on our side so we will eventually prevail. It’s only a matter of how much damage is done beforehand.

Update: the camera indeed caught me at the rally. Thanks to photographer Teresa McMinn of AOL News for the link, and don’t forget to read the coverage from the Annapolis Patch.

We support the County Council

A letter to which I was a willing co-signer appeared yesterday in the Daily Times.

In it, the nine of us who comprise the body agreed that two key votes made by our County Council were emblematic of their promise of fiscal responsibility and accountability.

Obviously the vote to push back Bennett Middle School construction by one year was not taken lightly, but we felt it was the right decision at a time when the county isn’t in a position to be forced to repay indebtedness. And while it seemed like an easier decision on the surface to call for an elected school board, it was a vote we’ve seen not taken by previous County Councils – even the last one where Republicans were in the majority.

At this time, our county exists in a situation akin to that of the federal government – a strong, left-of-center executive being kept in check by a conservative legislative body. Of course, Rick Pollitt isn’t exactly Barack Obama but he spent the first three years of his tenure whining about revenue lost to him because the county has a revenue cap – it was only when re-election stared him in the face that he moderated his tune. (Indeed, we may see this about 120 miles up the road in Washington, D.C. as well.)

But here was a chance to give the County Council some ‘attaboys’ (and ‘attagirls’) for making a tough but correct decision. When you think about it, students have succeeded from schools in far worse shape than Bennett Middle School – yes, the school shows its age but the building remains structurally sound. There’s no one rushing over to condemn it. And the new BMS may be overpriced – unfortunately, some of that cost comes from ill-considered state mandates like LEED Silver certification. (I’d like to know the payback period on these additional features, if there is one.) Unfortunately, we can’t build a functional, inexpensive school building anymore and expect state assistance.

There’s no doubt that the next 42 months or so will bring many more difficult decisions, but right now it’s a case of so far so good. Keep up the great work, folks!

New City Council poll

There’s a new sidebar poll on the City Council race, with an important difference.

I have changed the parameters to discourage frequent repeat voting. Although someone could skew the results to an extent, it’s going to be a little more difficult to do.

As for the poll this replaces, I found it interesting that support for creating five single-person districts in the city is reasonably strong. Over 50 percent (51.42% to be exact) favored that option, although a small portion of that group advocated adding two at-large Council members to base it more closely on Wicomico County. 40 percent favored the current system, while the other 8.57% would like all five elected at-large.

It’s highly doubtful this will happen anytime soon, though, as primary results indeed suggest three City Council members (Terry Cohen, Tim Spies, and Debbie Campbell) will represent the Camden neighborhood. Obviously they’ll have nothing to do with making that neighborhood just one of five districts; meanwhile areas like Johnson’s Lake, Doverdale, and the southeast quadrant of the city where I live may have no local representatives if results hold true.

Astroturf vs. grassroots

It’ll be David taking on Goliath once again tomorrow evening in Annapolis.

On the astroturf side, union protesters, joined by teachers, are expected to be bussed in between 5,000 and 10,000 strong to Lawyers Mall for a rally tomorrow evening. AFL-CIO head Richard Trumka is expected to be the keynote speaker for the two-hour long union march and rally. For them, it’s all about keeping their hold on the goodies because Maryland already is a state under Democratic Party control and even though right-to-work legislation has been introduced it’s not likely to advance to even a committee vote.

The grassroots will be represented across the street by a few dozen who realize that the union’s goodies have started the state down the road to financial ruin and believe the steps taken in Wisconsin are necessary to right the ship. It’s most telling that the unions objected loudest not to the changes in pension and healthcare contributions Wisconsin public sector employees would have to shoulder, but to the new reauthorization schedule and taking away the dues checkoff in paychecks. Follow the money.

Locally, Cathy Keim is spearheading the effort to represent Salisbury at the event, and I plan on going with her to cover and participate. There are two slots left in her vehicle, although if others wish to drive that would certainly help. Cathy can be reached at (443) 880-5912.

Unions have their place in this nation, and I have no animus toward collective bargaining in the private sector. But there is a reason public-sector unions were discouraged until the 1960’s. Moreover, unions overstep their boundaries once they force workers to participate and contribute money to candidates and causes the rank-and-file may not completely support.

Come up to Annapolis and be part of that “irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” Before long, we won’t be the minority anymore!

Setting back energy policy

Besides the crowd who rightfully is chanting “drill, baby, drill” when it comes to domestic energy policy, a number of energy advocates call on our nation to resume building nuclear power plants after a hiatus of over thirty years. For example, they point to France as a nation which gets it right in that regard – the vast majority of her electricity comes from nuclear power. Japan is another nation heavily reliant on nuclear power, with 55 plants dotting their landscape.

But the recent drama there obviously raises concerns, with the recent earthquake and resulting tsunami heavily damaging a number of nuclear facilities in the land of the rising sun – one teeters on the edge of a meltdown after an explosion heavily damaged one of its main buildings.

While only small portions of our nation along the Pacific coast and along the Mississippi River have the potential for major earthquakes, the cause of this potential nuclear disaster is one not unlikely in the wake of any number of other natural disasters such as a tornado, hurricane, or fire – an extended power outage which has depleted the plant’s backup cooling system. Certainly nuclear power has been shown as a reasonably reliable source of energy, but critics will point to the Fukushima plant much as they did to the Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Pennsylvania and create another halt to any planned resumption of nuclear power plant construction.

This debate extends to Maryland, where the fate of the Calvert Cliffs facility remains in question. A planned third reactor there is on hold due to the reluctance of Constellation Energy to accept excessive fees as part of a $7.5 billion loan guarantee from the federal government. Given the situation in Japan, one has to ask if Martin O’Malley’s radical environmental backers will convince him to withdraw his support of that project? It’s highly unlikely an earthquake or associated tsunami would overwhelm that bayfront facility, but it would be vulnerable to a hurricane, or, more likely, a tornado.

Still, the risks of such an event are small, and it’s more likely a power outage would occur simply from having a lack of supply or an unrelated catastrophic infrastructure failure like the Northeast Blackout of 2003. All that stimulus money which was supposed to go toward fixing these sorts of problems somehow managed to find its way to local and state governments instead, thus the lingering issues have been unaddressed.

And while nuclear power has this obvious drawback which has created sensational headlines around the globe, bear in mind that any other source of power would have been adversely affected by these conditions as well. In short, this is an extreme circumstance that we should be mindful of in future planning but not overly cautious about.

But those who oppose nuclear power are sure to play the situation up for all it’s worth.

Friday night videos – episode 61

I have a bunch of political stuff this week, so I’m right back at it.

We’ve been saddled with a moratorium on Gulf drilling ever since the Deepwater Horizon accident almost a year ago. Now other real people are being hurt – those who depend on black gold for their livelihood. Frank McCaffrey of Americans for Limited Government investigates.

On the other hand, government has to provide incentives for “green” projects to commence. But what if the money runs out? Chris Horner of the Competitive Enterprise Institute explains.

I can’t stay off the music the whole time. It was the late, great Ronnie James Dio who sang, “if you listen to fools, the mob rules!” Here’s a real-life example.

You may have heard about this video, which rocked National Public Radio and forced a corporate shakeup. Speaking of government-subsidized projects, why do we keep paying for this?

The next two videos depict a day in the life of an Arizona rancher on the Mexican border. I got these from the Center for Immigration Studies.

Imagine living life like that. This poor guy needs help, and securing the borders better would be his best source of assistance.

And yes, I have tunes. This was taped last week on Kim’s iPod as Semiblind rocked the Lagoon here in Salisbury. This is an original called “Take Control.”

So there you have it, done on the fly. By the way, I think I can do Semiblind videos from now until Christmas thanks to Kim!

A victory, if only for awhile

Marriage solely between a man and woman is safe in Maryland, at least for now.

If you believe House Speaker Michael Busch (and the Washington Post), the measure is dead for this term as supporters couldn’t convince 71 Delegates (a majority in the 141-seat body) to say yes to SB116. Two amendments were voted down today before Del. Joseph Vallario, Jr. asked the bill be recommitted to the Judiciary Committee. With all the angst in getting the bill to the point where it was, including sharply divided Senate and House committee votes, spending more time on what would likely be a losing cause apparently seemed pointless to Busch. Vallario likely didn’t want to go through another divisive committee vote, either.

The Baltimore Sun has additional commentary, with impassioned reaction from both sides of their readership – predictable wailing and gnashing of teeth from gay rights advocates and relieved but wary platitudes from those who feel marriage should remain as is.

It’s a tough day for our local leftists today – losing their blog and their cherished gay marriage bill in the span of 24 hours.

But now the General Assembly can get down to a key issue on its plate: fixing the state’s budget.