All Posts Tagged With: "hypocrites"
Alphabet Soup of Activist Hypocrites Try to Block Wind and Wave Energy Projects In California.
Hypocrisy of obstructionist minority, egotists and “nimbyism” harming everyone else.
Fifty-one percent of Californians support drilling off its coast bringing to 49 states that do support it. Some want to pursue only alternatives and most say do it all.
The Electric Power Research Institute estimates enough wave power can be extracted from coastal waters to account for about 15 percent of California’s electricity production. Wind could provide up to 110 percent, according to a Stanford University study published last year. Wind and Wave generated electricity could replace 125% of California’s electricity.
Offshore wind and wave technologies are promising, but untried. But, current wave technology is mature enough for demonstration testing.
Even before there are concrete plans to do either obstructionist are swarming all over the idea. Speculating about potential damage to the coast’s prized vistas and fish industry.
Northern California’s biggest utility company, Pacific Gas and Electric Co., would connect such wind and wave produced electricity to the power grid.
The Recreational Fishing Alliance is skeptical. concerned wave power may interfere with fisheries as the buoys bob up and down in the waves. Their biggest complaint right now, however, is that local fishermen and residents have had no say in the planning. Fishermen Interested in Safe Hydrokinetics, or FISH is battling for a role in the planning.
Both group frittered for months and missed a federal deadline has passed for gaining an official voice in the legal planning for the wave projects, alongside PG&E and federal energy regulators.
Hypocrites By The Dozen in Keystone State “Bonusgate”
First dozen crooks looks like only beginning of “Bonusgate”
Twelve current and former PENNSYLVANIA lawmakers and legislative aides were indicted July 10 for allegedly pressing state employees into working political campaigns on state time and then rewarding them with millions of dollars in bonuses from state coffers, a scandal that has been dubbed “Bonusgate.”
Among those charged in the grand jury investigation by state Attorney General Tom Corbett were former House Minority Whip Michael Veon, credited with engineering the Democrats’ recapture of the chamber in 2006; current state Rep. Sean M. Ramaley (D); Jeff Foreman, Veon’s former chief of staff; and Michael Manzo, chief of staff to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese (D) until last year.
Corbett emphasized that the charges he announced were only the “initial” ones. “Let me make this perfectly clear: this is not the conclusion,” he said. “This is an ongoing investigation.”
The Democrats’ and Republicans’ practice of dolling out year-end bonuses had been a longstanding but secret one in Harrisburg until the Patriot-News made it public knowledge in early 2007. Party leaders in the House and Senate initially refused to release details about
the bonuses. But it eventually came out that at the end of 2006, House Democrats handed out nearly $1.9 million in bonuses to 717 aides, in large part for thwarting third-party candidate Ralph Nader’s presidential challenge to John Kerry in the state; House Republicans awarded $270,000 in bonuses to 45 aides; Senate Republicans gave $180,000 to 16 staffers; and Senate Democrats gave $38,000 to a dozen staffers.
Corbett’s investigation focused from the start on House Democrats, ostensibly because of the volume of their bonuses. But Brett Cott, Veon’s former administrative director who was also charged by Corbett, seemed to think the course of the prosecution was an outgrowth of Harrisburg’s political culture, Corbett being a Republican. “There may be a culture here. There may be campaigning going on. Whatever. But for a systematic, focused effort to look at just one party, one house, one chamber - it’s very disappointing,” he said.
Cott evidently sees himself as a victim of that culture, something like the unfortunate Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, who ends up taking a sword because of the Capulets’ and Montagues’ feuding. When asked last October about the apparent blurring of the line between government and politics, he said: “Look, a pox on everybody’s house. A pox on everything that’s going on here.” (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE, PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER)
OILY HYPOCRITES HYPOCRISY
“HOT GASOLINE” COSTS MOTORISTS $2.3 BILLION MORE THIS YEAR - THIS WILL FRY YOUR TOOKUS.
“Hot gas” of gasoline heated by higher summer temperatures will cost American motorist an extra $2,300,000,000 (billion) more at the gasoline pumps this year. Gasoline is sold at 231 cubic inches to the gallon at a relatively low 60 degrees so when the temperature rises above that it expands. If its temperature goes up to 15 degrees the gasoline expands 1% by volume. So, at $5 a gallon that’s like throwing away a nickel. The only State that takes higher temperatures into account is Hawaii where a gallon is measured and sold at 234 cubic inches compensating for its usual 80 degree temperature.
No other State adjusts gasoline sales for temperature although fairness is weights and measures are universally a state-by-state issue. Look at a gasoline pump the there is a little sticker on each pump that says some bureaucrat has tested and certifies that it dispenses 231 cubic inches per gallon. There is no federal law about this issue.
Hypocritically The American Petroleum Institute, according to a 2006 article in the Kansas City Star, says “consumers don’t want to be bothered by pumps that adjust the size of a gallon to make sure they get the same amount of energy no matter what the temperature” and anyway it would cost too much money to install gasoline pumps that do it.
A further hypocrisy is API’s flip-flop in Canada where almost all gasoline and diesel fuel is sold on a temperature adjusted basis, and then fact oil companies sell fuel to wholesalers on a temperature adjusted basis.
Anyway API says it would cost too much to install such pumps about $16 billion.
API’s views are generally echoed by the Petroleum Marketers Association of America, which represents independent gas station operators. Its president has said, “You put significant cost on the industry for virtually no gain.”
In 2007 American oil companies made about $2,000,000,000,000 (trillion) including the extra $2,300,000,000 from selling “hot gas” and posted profits of $160,000,000,000 (billion) both total income and profits are up substantially in 2008, So what’s a paltry TWO THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED MILLIONS OF DOLLARS AMONG FRIENDS?
So What Is Hypocrisy Anyway?
“Hypocrisy” is kind of a strange word. It’s made up of two Greek words, “hypo,” meaning “under,” and “krisis,” which has to do with judging or condemning. The word came to mean “answerer.” The puzzle is how those two basic words got together to mean that and then eventually “one who plays a part, pretends” (Webster’s Unabridged). In the ancient Greek theater, it was probably Aeschylus who added a second actor. He was known as the “hypocrites” because he answered the protagonist. In doing so, he wore a mask, and that is undoubtedly where our idea of the hypocrite as one who is one thing and pretends to be another comes from. The words spoken by that second actor are not his, nor are they words he might be expected to speak in the marketplace. They are the words of Aeschylus, Sophocles or some other dramatist. Our modern hypocrite is a person who pronounces words from behind a mask, words that do not at all reflect what that person truly is or believes.
A minister who claims to represent the God of the Bible, who is described as a God of love, and then spews out venomous hatred, is a prime example. Also, I remember a championship basketball player at a university where I taught who spoke at a junior high school and urged the children there not to take drugs. Two weeks later he was arrested for dealing drugs. That is also a perfect example. The politician who sits down with his or her handlers to ask what stance will influence the most people favorably, regardless of his or her personal views, is also a hypocrite, as is one who pretends to agonize over the poor and downtrodden but lives the life of an elitist.
Our word “person” also comes from Classical Greek theater and, somewhat ironically, means “mask.” In fact, in dealing with prominent figures in politics, sports or entertainment, we sometimes ask, “Who is the person behind the mask?” The opposite of hypocrisy is something called integrity. The person who possesses and practices it is one who is an integral whole, whose appearance and internal reality are of a piece.