[PrestonSturges]

You ought to check out the comments in this Washington Post article about Obama visiting alternate energy companies. If you haven't been keeping up with Rush and the gang, they have added alternate energy to their list of global conspiracies.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ ... &#comments
Did you know solar energy is "fascism?"

I like this guy

This is exactly what is wrong with our present government and why a REVOLUTION is coming.

I can just picture him going all Don Quixote and attacking a windmill


Funny how the Post talks about how "controversial" it is to visit a solar cell plant, not the rolling blackouts hitting China and India.

It's pretty clear the GOP is going to be on a mission to utterly destroy wind and solar power if they win the next elections.

[Sys1]

I think Washington Post, with it's capitalist orientation, is unable to accept subsidies for a company. Since clean tech energy can't rivalize (at least yet) with fossil fuels, then it should not have the attention from the USA president. It simply means that you can't run our civilisation and growth with clean tech energy only. On this point, they are perfectly right.
Now, they of course don't have any clue about peak oil, peak energy or global warming. They still didn't figure out that fossil fuels won't be able to run the civilisation in the coming years. We are stucked in a loose end.

[Oneaboveall]

Wow. Just when I thought that my faith in the American public couldn't get any lower, I read the posted link...

That's the kind of president he is, too. If it does not involve a Teleprompter or a golf course or a a free plane ride, he's just not very into the job.

1 spent five years in the senate and achieved nothing
2 pushed banks and freddie and fannie to make loans to those who could not pay back
3 did community service with acorn the corrupt organisation
4 went to harvard through affirmative action.

he also became president through affirmative action.everyone felt guilty so they voted him in.

41 visits using AF One to fly around on with his SS guards at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars per trip billed to U S Taxpayers.
I am sick and tired of letting this man spend my money af if he earned it instead of stole it from us. Can't wait until 1-20-13 and he is out of office for good.

Really?

[Bill Hicks]

Really?

Yep...morons and knuckleheads. With all of the very legitimate reasons to despise Obama for doubling down on the big business, war and empire agenda that is bankrupting the country and will be our downfall, these are the trivial issues these idiots focus on.

This is why we are utterly and completely doomed.

[AgentR11]

As a right winger, I don't much care for the subsidies either; but there's no good way to allocate the financial cost the government pays in lieu of the oil companies over defense and war expenditures in the Middle East. So its not really all that unfair to grant subsidies to wind and solar companies, even if it is very artificial. Problem with direct subsidies like these is that they allow a politically oriented person to pick winners and losers in a science and engineering game. I'm never going to be terribly comfortable with that, but I don't have a better idea either!

[PrestonSturges]

I'm sure there are plenty of valid points that some thoughtful conservative could make (in some alternate universe maybe), but just the level of the total gibberish in those Post comments really does leave one with the conclusion this is about race and nothing else. And boy howdy wouldn't you love to have those guys running the country? Want our energy policy set by oxycodone addicted peckerwoods? You might as well put the Khmer Rogue in charge.

Also, it really does make me think of the Taliban, because these guys sound like they almost ready to make sure that nobody has a school, hospital, or electricity because they are at war with "them," even if half of them think "them" are still the Russians.

[Oneaboveall]

Another quote I found:

"I'm a high school teacher " - teacher

Then you are a socialist traitor.

[AdTheNad]

Problem with direct subsidies like these is that they allow a politically oriented person to pick winners and losers in a science and engineering game. I'm never going to be terribly comfortable with that, but I don't have a better idea either!

This is a challenge to be sure, but one that we could attempt to alleviate, even if it can't be solved.

Before using the direct subsidies a cost benefit analysis should be performed in regards to net societal benefit - not the benefit of your biggest sponsor. This should attempt to include all hidden costs that people love to pretend don't exist while letting the free market do its thing. It really isn't very hard to show how subsidies can have a greater benefit than their cost. You just need to take everything into consideration when targeting them.

[Fishman]

Well Preston, there's gibberish in the paper from a lot of sides. Unfortunately what we have now is gibberish coming from the White House. I'm so sorry anything other than your viewpoint makes you think of the Taliban. Unfortunately for most of the left, the Taliban doesn't make them think of the Taliban.

[AgentR11]

cost benefit analysis should be performed in regards to net societal benefit - not the benefit of your biggest sponsor.

Couldn't care less whether the benefactors are sponsors, donors, or not. I do care if the benefactors are, or are not, specific policy preferences of those in charge of distribution. And unfortunately, "net societal benefit" is as often an obfuscation tool as it is a measurement; its evaluation depends on the underlying definitions used to quantify. I can assure you the formula designed by The Heritage Foundation would be drastically different than one designed by Greenpeace. Thus proving its subjectivity and unsuitability for impartial distribution of subsidies.

When the iron hand is used, I prefer it to be openly displayed and understood by all parties.

You just need to take everything into consideration when targeting them.

The question isn't whether subsidies; but to whom the subsidies go.

[PrestonSturges]

The criticisms come form the GOP congressman who are financed entirely by the oil and mining industries (you know, the folks making money hand over fist on $4 gas).