Sarah Palin, Washington Post Op-Ed Columist

@momof3wildkids:

There were plenty of companies who wanted to build nuclear plants, but the US gov't threw a wrench into those plans after 3-Mile Island.

Consumers, in the form of city, county, and state legistlators, had everything to do with nuclear power becoming undesirable to end-users. It's true that 3 Mile Island was a catalyst but that event also taught us that the safety regulations put in place by the US government worked. People became afraid of it though, and after Chernobyl, no amount of safety precautions could be placed to convince most that nuclear power at least as safe as any other method, and a whole lot less expensive in the end.

Right after being caught with their salon plan? Really??

Scheherezade

@Pope John Peeps II: It would be so coallous of them.

@FrankenPC: I'm pretty sure anything by her appearing in print was dictated into a tape recorder on the back of a four-wheeler, transcribed on an IBM Selectric hooked up to a generator and then strapped to a Caribou shot out of a cannon, aimed in the general direction of the Wire Services.

The rest is clearly God's work.

@Richard Lawson: I just scraped some "clean-dogshit" off my front stoop.

"We must move in a new direction."

Yeah, Sarah. Away from you.

looks she just pulled an old high school debate paper

@bowel_and_the_obstructors: I see where you are going with this. However, I believe that government intervention has put us in this pickle, to some degree. There were plenty of companies who wanted to build nuclear plants, but the US gov't threw a wrench into those plans after 3-Mile Island. Refineries? We don't have enough not because of consumers and industry, but because of gov't intervention.

I hope the US can develop viable alternatives to the fossil fuels and foreign dependence on oil without cap and trade happening first. After additional options are available, cap and trade makes sense to me.

momof3wildkids

@HiredGoons: HAHAHA!! Classic!

On another note, I had no idea Palin could write.

FrankenPC

Oh cool, she is going to bitch in a place where I won't see it. Sweet!

@gawkimo: so she can see oil from her house.

@HiredGoons: She could also use a lesson on who we actually depend on for oil. Russia and China are not major suppliers for the US. I'm not even sure we get any oil from China since China is one of the giant consumers. She listed Russia and China because they sound scarier than Canada and Mexico.

gawkimo

"beyond the fact that it's something hated by the energy conglomerates that Obama says will help save the earth from environmental destruction, which naturally leads us to lean toward being in favor of it."

What about the fact that it would be the biggest tax hike in the past 50 years?

xoxoGossipGirl

@Richard Lawson: also a bold faced one.

@intime: I hope somebody tells her that oil comes from fossils, that will really fuck with her.

@Pope John Peeps II: damn it.

"Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source."

The coal's technology? The state's?

FAILIN.

Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source.

I was unaware coal had its own technology. We should really take care of coal before it decides to rise up against us, and burn OUR bodies for warmth.

Yeah, the resources that God created underfoot right here in America only 6000 years ago, right, Sarah?

Seriously, do we really need to be subjected to Op Eds from people who quit their jobs? Will this be part of a series?

"Hey, Ford, fuck you and your lame pension program! But here's my latest idea for a moderately priced sport utility vehicle."

@Richard Lawson:

What are you talking about? They should have that little mess in Harriman, Tenn. cleaned up in no time.

"And just think...nobody thought this political career could continue." [makes out with Washington Post, exits]

@momof3wildkids: Except it doesn't. Hansen is opposing this on the basis that it doesn't go far enough. FWIW, Al Gore disagrees with this assessment.

Caribou Barbie is against it because doing hardly enough is too much. If I recall, she also is a climate denier.

@Richard Lawson: I almost buy the full sequestration at the source process. Basically it amounts to compressing the CO2 emissions and pumping them down deep into the bedrock.

Anything short of that is definitely bullshit.

Biofuel also seems to be a canard, as it takes more energy to make than you get out of it.

the best part about this is that the media responses to her slop-ed piece will inevitably give her at least another couple weeks' worth of "won't people please stop attacking my children?" fuel.

@momof3wildkids: And the problem all along has been that the traditional energy sources have been cheap. Industry and consumer alike need a kick in the ass and cap and trade might do it.

Translation of Palin Editorial to English:
"I'm gonna be an AEC 'resident scholar' by next Monday, and I'll never have to think again! Whoopee!"

atlasspanked

momof32ildkids: Still, Cap and Trade doesn't really do anything other than tax the shit out of consumers and industries that can least afford it.

Oh really?
Whatever.

And Southern CT gas won't run a pipeline up the street to your house? Wow. Must be communism.

atlasspanked

Whatever your feelings on Cap-and-Trade are, we're all in agreement that "clean coal technology" is a complete and utter horseshit lie, right?

@HeathersBrother: Her?

Is this the first use of the word "clobber" in the WAPO?

Queen of the Passive Aggressives

@bowel_and_the_obstructors: I have no problem with their "true cost" if there is a viable alternative available. The US has mistakenly not allowed nuclear power plants to be built in decades, we have limited refineries, limited natural gas distribution, etc..

I've been trying for year's to have Southern CT Gas bring the gas line up our street 115 feet so I can use natural gas for heating vs oil. Five other neighbors would jump on the nat gas band wagon with me. They won't do it.

I would not be against Cap and Trade if we had other options available to the consumer and industry.

momof3wildkids

@if_i_only_had_a_heart: I stand corrected: I should have said a crappy energy policy.

momof3wildkids

Even if that statistic is true about job loss, it is inevitable that this will occur at some point. It is obvious to most that we cannot keep going on the way we have, and job losses are a product of any major societal change. And yes, we absolutely should provide for those people until they get on their feet with another job.

Because, yes, people do adapt and change, Sarah.

@momof3wildkids: one teensy correction; the us has in fact had an energy policy for the past 30 years: make the energy conglomerates in general and the oil cos and the coal cos, especially the saudis who love the bush family so much even richer, while preventing anything that looks like alternative energy green energy or conservation. it's been an extremely clear and focused policy if u look back at three decades of results since the 70s when opec had the world by the balls and nobody has done anything to fix that since. accident? i think now. policy? absolutely.

@uncivily obedient: all of the above ... save the earth AND hated by energy conglomerates AND obama says, my .025 anywayz

...to the tune of $4.2 billion over eight years...

As some guy on Andrew Sullivan's blog points out, that comes out to $525 million - or one bridge to nowhere - per year.

choinski

Notice that the whole piece avoids mentioning that the policy is designed to address global warming and CO2, with energy independence as a likely dividend. But I suppose that's the point.

Shorter Palin: "God gave us oil! He gave it to us! How can God's gift be bad!"

@momof3wildkids "tax the shit out of consumers"? Not quite. It costs about the same as a postage stamp a day. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jun/25/edward-markey/claims-cbo-predicts-cap-and-trade-will-c.../

@momof3wildkids: God forbid energy prices should actually reflect their true cost, including the costs of CO2 pollution.

@momof3wildkids: Agreed.

@BxgrlJeri: holla at me now dontcha know.

@AstraIshan: Thanks for posting this link. The article speaks for itself.

momof3wildkids

I am going to have start reading the Washington Post again now that they have added a fiction section. Awesome!

adiam7

@The Cajun Boy: The energy conglomerates are nasty fuckers, the lot of them. They are in large part why the US has had no energy policy for the past 20 years. We need to strip them of their power over the Congress.

Still, Cap and Trade doesn't really do anything other than tax the shit out of consumers and industries that can least afford it. I'd be in favor of a plan like this if we invested in making alternative fuel technologies more available and affordable prior to its inception.

To me Cap and Trade is like taxing the hell out of driving a car when there is no public transportation available in a city. You have no true alternatives.

momof3wildkids

@Dürer's Rhino: Well of course the energy companies aren't going to eat the cost. They are a BUSINESS. They want to make money for themselves and their shareholders. Even if the US were to nationalize the power companies, the cost is going to be passed on to the consumer.

Unless you plan on capping rates (and we saw how well that worked out in California a few years back), consumer energy costs will soar under this plan.

momof3wildkids

@momof3wildkids: You're absolutely right. Our Energy Company sent out a flier explaining their position on cap & trade as well as the potential for renewables in our state. What it boiled down to was that no matter how the policy changed they would be passing the costs to the consumer and that they would not shoulder a single penny of it. It basically told us to prepare for significantly higher power bills ...and that they like their Scotch at least 50 years old and their cigars Cuban

Wow! What a piece of crap. I like also that she throws in a "yes, we can" near the end. Some kind of un/intended(?) irony perhaps. Love the photoshopped image, btw.

dontread

@uncivily obedient: Honestly, I'm more in favor of anything hated by the energy conglomerates. I don't trust any of those fuckers. At all.

@Dr. Nick: It's as plain as the palin on nose's face

@momof3wildkids: If the current bill is really "cap and trade" (I haven't read the thing itself either) this means that there are no "energy taxes" per se involved. Cap and trade schemes place a hard upper limit on emissions, grant polluting industries emission allowances that add up to this total, and then creating a market so that these allowances can be traded freely. So, if I'm a profitable (but dirty) industry that's hard to clean up, I can buy emissions allowances from cleaner industries that have allowances to spare, or go over my allowance and pay a (probably exorbitant) fine.

The "cap and tax" phrase Palin and a lot of other Republicans are using is pretty slimy and flat-out wrong if this is really a cap and trade bill. It's not like the evil government will be billing you or the energy industries for $5 per ton of carbon emitted or anything. It probably will result in higher energy prices due to energy industries passing on the cost of fines or cleaning up or buying allowances, and there probably will be a gross loss of jobs from companies that go under because they can't afford to do any of those. But it's the better option for reducing emissions to a set target according to economic theory, and hey, "market-based!", so at least some conservatives should man up and get behind it.

theghastlyfop

Whaddaya expect from an airhead with barely a fourth grade educationl?

MassimoWoodpecker

See any of James Hansen's comments on why cap and trade won't be effective - http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/01/scentist-letter-hansen-barack-obama...

AstraIshan

"....it's something hated by the energy conglomerates that Obama says will help save the earth from environmental destruction, which naturally leads us to lean toward being in favor of it."

I got a chill when I read that last sentence. Are you naturally lead to be in favor of it because of the "save the earth" and the "hated by energy conglomerates" part, or the "Obama says" part?

uncivily obedient

Sarah Palin is the herpes of politics. You keep hoping she's gone, but you just know she'll keep coming back. Forever.

@ChillbearLatrigue:Infidel.

@ChillbearLatrigue: A very poor spokesperson who is light on the details (and coherency), but that doesn't mean she is wrong.

Cap and Trade imposes significant taxes on energy which will hit the vast majority of Americans, saving those who are "poor enough" to qualify for energy credits - whatever those are. More importantly, it will tax the industrial complex of our nation at a time we and they can least afford it.

There must be a better way to encourage alternative energy sources than taxing the shit out of our current ones. The US has had a horrible energy policy for 20+ years. This will make it no better.

momof3wildkids

@if_i_only_had_a_heart: Now tell us how you REALLY feel!

"...the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil." Question? Same God that put half of the world's oil underneath countries that are primarily Muslim and allows nuclear technology to be doled out to the likes of Iran and Pakistan? Or are there multiple gods working in the field of energy and the Islamic God is just better at it?

Please, don't take my making fun of Sarah Palin as any sort of support for Cap and Trade. As soon as I figure it out, I will be strongly against it.

Oh, oh, no. Is this going to be a regular thing? Can they have her write about corporation tax or something next time? Ahahaha.

Also, what on earth has happened to the commenting system?

Were I more industrious, I'd run out and buy a wide-ruled composition pad then write out the piece in big loopy letters, dotting the i's with smileys and hearts and doodling oil rigs and guns and balloon-lettered 'Todd's. While it wouldn't be the original unedited post as submitted, it would likely be a reasonable facsimile.

illiterate, unthinking, spouting buzz words and tired ideas like a deranged parrot: john mccain's pick for vp. mavericky mavericky mavericky mavericky

$4.2 billion over eight years from the job losses that will result? Really? Can I see your work on that?

i'm a bottle

Any article with a headline combining "Sarah Palin" and "post op" has got to be worth a read.
"Sarah Palin, a post-op editorial columnist based in Washington" is how I'm choosing to deconstruct that title.

Charax

No op-ed piece is really complete without the word "clobber."

Oh, if it landed on my desk while I was RIMming (the joke gets old quick kids) I would so forward you the whole thing.

ndhapple

This should have been printed in Comic Sans and illustrated with ClipArt. And the copy editor should have left her emoticons in.

@Dürer's Rhino: Dürer's right. It wasn't the U.S. government alone that threw a wrench into the nuclear industry's plans. Ultimately, for nuclear power to succeed as an alternative energy source, people's attitudes toward living near a nuclear power plant must change significantly. Are you willing to live near a nuclear power plant? If so, how close? 5 miles? 10 miles? For densely populated areas - areas where energy demands are greatest - where does one find a place that is sufficiently far from the populace to allay its fears? Proponents of nuclear power love to extol its benefits, but never reveal how willing they'd be to live next to a reactor.

Nuclear power is efficient and the manner in which it produces energy is inherently clean (use the energy from nuclear fission to boil water, whereby the resulting steam drives turbines which, in turn, driver electric generators). The caveats, of course, are the risk of a meltdown, the extreme and enduring toxicity of the fuel, the difficulty of containing radioactive contamination and the cost and efficacy of decontamination. Proponents tend to downplay these risks and often fail to take into account the exorbitant costs of construction, maintenance, security, and waste disposal. And, while proponents are correct that catastophic failures are rare, they fail to account for the economic and social costs incurred when catastrophic failure of a nuclear power plant does occur, costs that far exceed those associated with the catastrophic failure of other energy sources (the most extreme of these being transient earthquakes that are occasionally associated with geothermal energy exploration and localized explosions at fossil fuel plants).

atlasfugged

@Richard Lawson: What?! Loretta Lynn can attest coal is so clean she was practically the Noxema girl in her day. Those miners are just doing it wrong.

This article makes clear the real reason she quit: she's planning to join Glenn Beck's comedy tour.

irishflyesq

@Pope John Peeps II: don't stoke my furnace, I'm still fuming.

@HiredGoons: I see our senses of humour are mined from the same vein.

It's interesting how if we rely more on wind, solar, biomass and energy efficiency we will be outsourcing our energy supply to Russia and China. I can't wait to see the big tankers full of wind and sun arriving in our ports.

@Pope John Peeps II: There's a follow-up to Nailin' Palin in the works. It's called Shaftin' Sarah.

i'm a bottle

@pufflehuff: No. Just a cultural reference gone wrong, apparently.

HeathersBrother