They aren’t paid to be right. They are paid to make noise.

happy new year. rain. gonna be a messy bowl here in The City Beautiful

Happy new year BT! Thanks for all your scathing posts this past year.

Happy New Year everyone.

Still, it’s good to remind everyone just how ridiculous these Very Serious Conservatives really are. Remember, the National Review is the alleged “respectable” face of conservatism.

And to you too!

That would make a great semi-comedic documentary. All of the print and televison punditry on the right and on the further right (the left dosent get seen on TV in america) prognosticating and guessing all the shit about which they have no clue, but which they are paid to know about, presumably. The theme could something like, “you believe THESE guys”? or “are they EVER right”?. I’ll get started. I’ll need a budget. JK

Happy New Year, BT and everyone. Love you!

Happy New Year BT.

So what are their predictions for 2010? Do let us know so we can bet against them.

They are paid to mislead. Does Big Oil want the Doughy Pantload to deny global warming? You bet your bippy it does.

BTW, big oil is having great success in keeping Obama away from solar and wind energy.

Did any conservatives predict that?

BTW, big oil is having great success in keeping Obama away from solar and wind energy.

Did any conservatives predict that?

No, I don’t think they did. On the other hand, it doesn’t take a great leap of imagination for this disgruntled progressive to predict that these trends will continue on a depressing scale. I predict no advances in government funded investigation into algae or other biological replacement fuels–but there will be some controlled by corporate energy interests. I predict continued lackluster advancement in government funded research towards solar energy–but private interests will continue research and patent control at unprecidented levels. I predict wind energy (being the least efficient and most troublesome in terms of energy delivery problems) will continue to be put forth as a red herring with very little government funding–but any monetary gains from wind energy or turbine manufacture will continue to be controlled by private interests.

Now that I’m way out on a limb, it’s not too windy out here. Happy New Year, FDL!

The stupid. It buuurrrns us precious!

Oh, Tinman! Since you’re so invested in pointing out when you say people are “wrong”, what do you think about this, eh?

What? Tinman ran away again after making a single hit-and-run post? Gee, and I thought he was here to generate discussion as opposed to being a troll.

Not to defend John Derbyshire, but this prediction:

The Karzai government will cut a power-sharing deal with the Taliban

probably would have come to pass if Obama had chosen to disengage rather than escalate in Afghanistan.

And it will come to pass whenever the U.S. inevitably does disengage from that hellhole. That is what puppet governments do when their imperial masters decide its too costly to keep propping them up.

The problem with solar is that it needs a lot of land — a LOT of land — and you can’t do anything else with that land, once you put solar panels on it. With wind turbines, you can at least graze bovines and sheep underneath them, so their footprint isn’t quite as disruptive.

The best way to work solar is to put it in places that aren’t virgin or arable land — in other words, in places we’re already mucked with and don’t intend to use to grow food. This is why the Solar Roadways concept is so appealing: Instead of using oil-based asphalt on our roads, why not turn them into solar power generators?

Heartless, brainless, and cowardly… how did he settle on “tinman?”

Well, I guess this point has been made, even though it is foundationally obvious to me, about Afghanistan. It has never been conquered even after serious attempts by global superpowers. And yet we have to occupy Afghanistan, get our soldiers killed, further drain our future tax base, in order to train them in the art of self defense.

I used to think our corporate media was talking about things too lofty for me to understand. Now I just think they are stupid.

You too, egregious.

Well, I predicted the National Review’s predictions would be wrong. Predictably, as it were.

Unfortunately, all of my other predictions were wrong too.

For example, I predicted Obama would be impeached, Rahm Emanuel would be working at MacDonalds and Sarah Palin would pose nude for The Weekly Standard.

So, would you like to hear my predictions for this year?

Toto was already taken?

This is why the Solar Roadways concept is so appealing: Instead of using oil-based asphalt on our roads, why not turn them into solar power generators?

Marvelously imaginative! That could be one of thousands of ways to utilize the most massive energy source in Earth’s inertial reference system. Miniaturization of collection devices inside the Earth’s atmosphere or maximization of collection systems outside the Earth’s atmosphere are other avenues of exploration–just two more of thousands. But, again, I predict no government funded programs will be created to investigate or provide public gain through any of those areas of potential innovation; not in America, anyway. It makes me sad to realize that the Obama administration has no more inertia to break free of the black hole of corporate politics than any other political machine has been since Eisenhower. Well, at least he’s black.

Don’t mind Tinman. He’s just mad that someone dropped a house on his sister. (With apologies to L. Frank Baum and W.W. Denslow)

Ironic choice of the Miss Cleo image, seeing as how she worked for the old Psychic Friends Network, busted up by the FTC for being a scam factory. Miss Cleo never herself went to jail (contrary to the urban legend), but she wasn’t a real psychic. She just played one on TV.

Does appear to “squeak” alot!?

My prediction of one year ago was a simple one: Now that the Dems had taken over (and with a BLACK president, no less) the reins in DC, Al Qaeda as a terrorist organization would soon find itself shrinking, and would most likely wind up in a bold struggle with and against their nouveau competitors in order to promote their own return to prominence before year’s end. Who was their competition? The G.O.P., of course.

Remember, too, the good old days, when Commies were America’s major enemies, not Republicans? I do. What happened?

GOOD pun. That guy is a pathetic attention seeker. His MO Usualy is to pick a thread and go down the line responding to several comments with one liners. A textbook troll

That’s right, they’re wrong, and Hugh and hackworth1 are right. They’re not making sense, they’re making myths.

Why are the factually-challenged still employed? How do they “fail upwards?”

Obviously, as many of us delight in endlessly pointing out, they aren’t interested in “the reality-based community,” they’re interested in jacking public opinion. And to do that, they seem only too well aware, as I say only too often, that facts don’t have anywhere near the power to jack electorates myths do.

This is my favorite example of how to respond to a myth-jacking in progress, by Harpers.org’s Ken Silverstein:

Carolyn Lamm, president of the American Bar Association and friend of the world’s dictators, wrote a letter complaining about an article about her in Foreign Policy, which I linked to earlier[1]. If you want to read Lamm’s letter, it is available here[2].

The letter is skilled nonsense, demonstrating talents Lamm no doubt has honed in working to improve the image of the leaders of Libya, the former Zaire, and Uzbekistan (in that latter country, the “rule of law” about which Lamm claims to care so passionately, in one instance, killing a prisoner by immersing him in boiling water, among countless other offenses).

But I have to give it to Lamm for nerve; she wraps herself in the flag of the American Revolution in attempting to defend her conduct. . . .

“Skilled nonsense” would be too kind for NatRev, more like semi-skilled, eh? If it was all that skilled, we wouldn’t notice it. They’re “mistakes” are like glitches in The Matrix, where we see through the illusion into which they oh-so-kindly invite us.

If we take all NR’s “predictions,” compile them, what kind of bizarro world would we see? Do we even want to look?

I bow in your virtual direction, o Blue Texan, buster of many myths.

heh I have Solar on my roof tops and I haven’t paid PG&E a dime since last January…
Also you can grow crops between the rows of panels so not exactly “DEAD” land…

The “you people” was the tipoff. I discontinue reading and discount the worth of any comment that includes, “you people.”

Emptywheel has a fresh cross-post up: “New Year’s Resolution Music Jam”

The flying monkeys were my favorite but then I’m a sucker for a uniform.

How about a motivational film to watch sometime this weekend.

sprword.com, for those unfamiliar with it, is a great source for media you won’t see on our corporate airwaves.

The War on Democracy directed by John Pilger

Other Pilger documentaries

ratfoodisms.

They might be able to come up with some good predictions for 2009 if they wrote them today. On the other hand…

…good article! Didn’t they also predict Obama to be a leftist and a socialist? they flatter him too much! Cheerio everyone.

I love this sort of stuff, BT. Thanks.

Now also ["also"] seems an appropriate time to do some side-by-side predictions for health care “reform:” put together a list of what the Obamabots say will & won’t happen under their “reform” proposals. Then next to it put a list of predictions by Progressives, with particular attention to what will happen if this train wreck passes.

Then check back in a year or two to see how everyone fared.

WTF?? I didn’t even see any post he may have attempted.

Not, of course, that I’m begging for it.

But, again, I predict no government funded programs will be created to investigate or provide public gain through any of those areas of potential innovation; not in America, anyway.

Actually, they’ve already been given a grant from the US Department of Transportation to create a prototype panel. If it works, expect to see more DOT funds, if not private monies (hey, Google and Warren Buffett! Over here, man!) invested in the project.

Happy new year!
Thanks BT.

Actually Miss Cleo was as much of a real psychic as one could possibly be.

Meanwhile, my co-blogger Charles, over at Mercury Rising, has a somewhat better track record than the NR crowd.

Just so I have a starting point to think about, does anyone know approximately how many square miles of solar panels it would take to generate the same amount of electricity as we do now?

The number that I heard that supposedly Gore stated was covering about 10% the state of New Mexico would provide the same electricity that we have now. I can’t find that reference though. Is that right? Does anyone have a reference?

We should have some sort of starting point for discussions.