tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.comments2024-03-17T08:07:12.695-05:00Between The LinesJeff Sadowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03972004592729833310noreply@blogger.comBlogger2437125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-76443520635042656522019-10-08T16:16:59.945-05:002019-10-08T16:16:59.945-05:00I welcome any technology that creates competition,...I welcome any technology that creates competition, but I don't want to be forced to subsidize it. That's what the old net metering rule did (and will, as you point out, continue to do so for existing setups for the next 15+ years).<br /><br />That other forms of subsidies may exist doesn't validate the one that benefits you. Ensuring that I don't have to have my wealth transferred to someone else with political favor isn't the same as "protecting" existing providers.Jeff Sadowhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03972004592729833310noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-10576462479221538892019-09-25T22:41:53.944-05:002019-09-25T22:41:53.944-05:00So typical. Mr. Sadow is parroting a utility talk...So typical. Mr. Sadow is parroting a utility talking point rather than understanding the issue. Utilities are making a selective claim of subsidy against roof-top solar. Regulation of a natural monopoly is a witches’ brew of subsidies which affect all customers in different ways.<br /> <br />First, let’s make it clear. Commissioners Boissiere and Campbell are for the little guy. Since the new Net Metering Rule only applies to new systems, the ruling only applies to new contracts. In a politically masterful stroke, dissension among current customers was discouraged through a 15 year grandfather. Guess the $1/year/customer subsidy wasn’t important after all.<br /><br />Commissioners Campbell and Boissiere saw through the claims. They recognize the state benefits from jobs, investment and the release of a few dollars into the economy instead of sending it to corporate coffers. They believe in renewable benefits. They disbelieve utility claims of meaningful subsidies. The Rule vote was simply a protection racket without regard for the issue of scale or public interest.<br /> <br />Let’s put it in perspective. In 2017 SWEPCO granted 10 new Net Metering contracts. Had the new Rule been in place the transfer from customer to SWEPCO would have been less than $2,500/year. Say again, less than $2,500/year. To any rational person this is inconsequential to SWEPCO’s 200,000 customers or to their bottom line.<br /><br />So what is this about? Bragging rights, not monetary losses. Louisiana now joins the bottom of the pack in recognizing roof top solar benefits and allowing customer choice. Utility executives have proven to shareholders that there is no fear of business risk or lost revenues from this market. They can continue to make the rules, and they can continue to reap the profits. Bet the Executives get a big fat bonus for this one.<br /> <br />Let’s talk subsidies.<br /> <br />Residential Average Tariff Rates: Some customers use more than average, some less. It all averages out. That is a subsidy.<br /><br />Energy efficiency programs: The benevolent utility offers lighting upgrade programs and home energy efficiency upgrades. They get paid back for bloated administrative costs and, of all things, lost revenues. Only a few customers use these programs, but everyone pays. <br /><br />Renewables: Utilities discourage customer investment in renewable energy while lobbying for billion dollar wind farms is more than ironic. Kill local investment, tax base and jobs but invest in the same in other states? Build hundreds of miles of transmission while denying the value of distributed resources? All of these resources use tax credits which cost us all. <br /><br />Mr Sadow, and anyone else interested in utility monopoly regulation, should read Electricity Regulation in the US, A Guide, Second Edition. It helps you understand the why monopolies call their customers captive and the efforts of many regulatory agencies to slowly unwind this model. Disruptive technology doesn’t end with roof top solar. Soon Battery storage and demand-reducing inverter technologies will have to be recognized. Regulators can find ways to adapt, or they can continue to protect the utilities. There is no in between. <br /><br />We’ve done this before. Steel, petroleum, Ma Bell, Taxi cartels, Amazon have all been changed or have changed the marketplace for the benefit of the consumer. Yes, change is difficult and must be managed. But using regulatory protection to keep technology and customer choice out of the hands of consumers is patently wrong. <br /><br />Mr. Sadow and others defend the protection of the monopoly over the consumer. Just who is the crony capitalist?<br /><br />David W. YoungDavid W. Younghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15245544672659024087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-52454261655162735362015-06-03T10:05:15.413-05:002015-06-03T10:05:15.413-05:00There's nothing at all over-the-top about aski...There's nothing at all over-the-top about asking GOP legislators if they consider pro-choice people murderers -- conservatives and pro-lifers routinely label pro-choice citizens and legislators murderers. "Abortion is murder" is written on a large number of pro-life picket signs, especially when pro-lifers invade Unitarian churches in New Orleans to call all the congregants murderers as well.<br />The "murder" question exposes to most fundamental hypocrisy and idiocy of the reasoning used by anti-abortion activists. Ask any pro-lifer if they think abortion is murder, and they will immediately answer "yes." Then ask them if they then believe that all women who have abortions and all doctors who perform them should be charged with murder, and you'll get absolute silence in reply.<br /><br />You, as well, have stated in this post that "abortion is murder." But I'm betting everything that don't believe all women who have abortions and all doctors who perform them should be charged with murder. So you can't really say that having an abortion or performing an abortion is murder. <br />An embryo is not an "innocent baby," no matter how you try to twist the truth. If you held an embryo in your hand, would you feel it was "precious" and "special"? I doubt it. An embryo has no consciousness. <br /><br />In effect, pro-life people are trying to change the meaning and usage of of words; you're trying to turn an unformed zygote into a "person" with feelings and intelligence. No one ever called an embryo an "unborn child" until it was started by religious zealots.<br /><br />You, Mr. Sadow, are about a million miles from what I would consider to be "pro-life," when you factor in your appalling, obnoxious contempt for the poor, and your support of policy that protects only the wealthy few while you continually vilify the "idiocy" and "lack of personal responsibility" of the less fortunate among us. I wouldn't consider you or anyone pro-life until you begin to combat homelessness, support equal rights, and take action against poverty, homelessness and hunger. And I know you never will.<br /><br />You are not pro-life by any definition; you are anti-woman. You're tongue is so far up Bobby Jindal's ass that it's coming out of his mouth. You want the government out of your life but you rely on it for a paycheck. You're obsessed with protecting unborn fetuses, but after nine months, you don't want to know about it - as far as you're concerned they're "on their own." Life is precious in your world, but only until it's actually born. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-14362992085247357782015-05-29T10:53:00.852-05:002015-05-29T10:53:00.852-05:00Unfortunately we see me, me me as an argument to a...Unfortunately we see me, me me as an argument to additionally fund LA education.<br />Although the word student was in his blog, no where did he mention the only thing that matters in education: Sustained, Advanced, Student Success Outcomes, leading to ongoing, successful,student employment in the students chosen field of study, to become and continue to be a productive member of society<br />And we wonder why traditional education doesn't get reformed....Its because of traditional education naysayers and feet draggers...go figureAnonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09294191765840372097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-23108099428360335352015-05-28T06:59:28.339-05:002015-05-28T06:59:28.339-05:00
I see your guy Jindal is now using public money, ...<br />I see your guy Jindal is now using public money, public facilities and public employees to issue obvious federal campaign statements.<br /><br />Defend that!!!!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-20768579334281063982015-05-27T15:31:43.651-05:002015-05-27T15:31:43.651-05:00"Efficiency" in Jindal parlance means ho..."Efficiency" in Jindal parlance means how many jobs can be eliminated, and how many public services can be sold to private companies, using public moneys as incentive.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-40975399887600679502015-05-22T09:11:11.051-05:002015-05-22T09:11:11.051-05:00Jindal's executive order was nothing more than...Jindal's executive order was nothing more than the sour grapes actions of a governor who had his pet proposal killed in committee. If he can't have his way, he's taking his toys and going home.<br /><br />This order is unconstitutional on its face solely for promoting one religion over all others (fundamentalist Christianity); it's also a shameless political ploy geared to score early points for Jindal when he's running for President later this year. <br /><br />The bill quite simply sends the wrong message. We already have protection of religious practice in the First Amendment, and the fundamental rights included in it do not need the assistance or tweaking of Bobby Jindal.<br /><br />The insistence that a baker who bakes a cake for a same-sex marriage celebration is somehow being forced to participate in the wedding is laughably dishonest. If someone buys a musical instrument from a dealer, the seller has no say over what type of music will be played with that instrument or where it will be played. If a gay person buys a cake, the seller doesn't have any right to tell the buyer where it can be eaten, once the customer has paid for it.<br /><br />And of course, you've cited a poll conducted by a Christian organization to make the false claim that a majority of Louisianians support a religious freedom bill and/or executive order - take special note of the the polling questions, which are anything but neutrally posed. (It's always funny to me around election times when I get polling calls from conservative strategists asking such skewed questions like "Would you be inclined to support Bill Cassidy, who believes in freedom and individuality, or Mary Landrieu, who supports President Obama's radical liberal agenda?")<br /><br />Your man-crush, Bobby Jindal, has suffered a pretty embarrassing defeat here, and he reacted with the ersatz efficiency of spoiled, petulant brat who can't handle it when he doesn't get his way, by issuing a useless executive order that will have no effect and never make law, and it's pretty entertaining to see you flailing away wildly with your usual dishonest defense of him. Reminder, Mr. Sadow: you're on Blogspot, where you belong, and where you will likely stay. There's a reason for that, and it's your transparently dishonest reasoning.<br /><br />PS: Fuck You<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-48275854451829730202015-05-15T10:47:17.208-05:002015-05-15T10:47:17.208-05:00It's good thing that the author is a political...It's good thing that the author is a political scientist, as it is obvious that he would flunk accounting & economics.<br /><br />You see, without Medicaid, all the poor folks still go the hospitals and get free care - because of the REAGAN signed law stating that hospitals taking Medicare must care for patients without regard to their ability to pay. So the hospitals must jack up the prices of everything to make up for the loss - especially now that Medicaid funding for such folks has ended (i.e., replaced by the medicaid expanion), which of courss causes the prices to be much higher than they should.<br /><br />This "back door" Medicaid expansion simply states that this extra amount will be 10% of the costs of Medicaid, instead of the de facto 100%. Oh, and with folks in a regular health plan, their medical needs will be much cheaper as problems can be detected by regular office visits, instead of the situation now in which such folks go to the hospital when they can't go any longer (with the condition much worsened).swampwiznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-30658272168376671662015-05-14T06:25:39.407-05:002015-05-14T06:25:39.407-05:00"...this session..,"???????????
Where h..."...this session..,"???????????<br /><br />Where has our wonder-boy Governor been on these issues for the last SEVEN years?<br /><br />'Nuff said.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-89232042291351744432015-05-12T13:18:50.267-05:002015-05-12T13:18:50.267-05:00Thank you for the article, but PLEASE proof before...Thank you for the article, but PLEASE proof before posting. This was very painful to read. You have several cases of extraneous pauses, subject-verb agreement problems, changes in tense mid-sentence, and clauses that beg more questions than the extra information they offer.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-53513098506328253122015-05-01T15:29:37.186-05:002015-05-01T15:29:37.186-05:00Re:"they themselves are guilty of."
Wow...Re:"they themselves are guilty of."<br /><br />Wow - that reply was really insightful about the hate part. It sounds like this is a personal vendetta to you.<br /><br />Seems like a simple issue to me - LA has more major universities than it has students to attend them, and the tax payers are footing the bill. Rather than raise taxes, let's close or merge a few universities and maybe cut down on some of the cost.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-32758087620753822712015-05-01T05:51:13.957-05:002015-05-01T05:51:13.957-05:00Let's see:
We cant take care of our poor.
We...<br />Let's see:<br /><br />We cant take care of our poor.<br /><br />We cant take care of our sick and ill.<br /><br />We cant take care of our institutions of higher education.<br /><br />We cant take care of our roads and bridges.<br /><br />We cant take care of our teachers and state employees<br /><br />We cant take care of our public buildings and museums.<br /><br />We are in great shape after seven years of Mr. Jindal and his enabling Legislature.<br /><br />Oh, yes, we cant take care of the costs to run the new $1.2 billion hospital in New Orleans we just had to build.<br /><br />I could go on and on and on,Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-49819342023988820892015-04-28T14:12:18.458-05:002015-04-28T14:12:18.458-05:00I don't understand the hate here. It seems obv...I don't understand the hate here. It seems obvious that LA has too few students seeking too many universities in the same market. Why bail them all out each fiscal year? Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-10250022244269862062015-04-28T14:10:59.155-05:002015-04-28T14:10:59.155-05:00You have to at least acknowledge the insanity in R...You have to at least acknowledge the insanity in Republican demands to plug a $1.6 billion budget deficit by remaining "revenue neutral." Jindal is telling the legislature to irrigate the land by continuing a drought. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-73260057339836910842015-04-28T00:40:03.843-05:002015-04-28T00:40:03.843-05:00TOPS is a wonderful SOCIAL PROGRAM utilized by bot...<b>TOPS</b> is a wonderful <b>SOCIAL PROGRAM</b> utilized by both red and blue voting crowds. It is clear that there are not many politicians willing to tackle [down] TOPS as that would most probably mean a political suicide. However, we cannot continue funding this social program. At least not after huge tax cuts granted to those that do not need them and with billions in wasteful consulting contracts awarded to red voting lobbyists voting for small government while depending on large government. People spoke that they want fiscally responsible state. Therefore, your kids will have to go to a school that YOU [Mr. and Mrs. voter] can afford. And you know that most people can hardly afford a community college tuition... We are on a path of <b>intellectual slavery</b>. Politicians need uneducated crowds that will vote for flag waving, bible holding, gay bashing,... politicians. And we want to attract businesses to our state? With what?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-31836885980174367092015-04-22T16:26:02.531-05:002015-04-22T16:26:02.531-05:00And therein lies the obscenity. Comparisons to Naz...And therein lies the obscenity. Comparisons to Nazis are the first resort of rank laziness, something we can all agree on. But if the comparison is made, then clarification should be offered. Sadow knows, as do I, that conservatism (like any ism) has an ugly extreme. History offers only a few examples of such ideological extremes manifest on a national scale. Germany in the 1930s is one. That regime took conservatism pitiless absolute, resulting in a brutal enforcement of the things Sadow and modern religious conservatives cherish: conformism, idolization of strong authoritary, xenophobia, racial enmity, militarism, cultural purity, and so on. Of course, Sadow is no Nazi. Few are these days. But those characteristics occupy the modern strain of conservative DNA as they did then. The religious right targets the same hapless groups, albeit in a more benign manner. Did Nazis check any of the boxes of sin that the modern right wing loves to use to defame liberalism? Where they multicultural? No. Did they support homosexual suffrage? No. Did they value dissent? No. Did they defend racial minorities or mixing of races as a human right? No. Where they 'soft on crime'? Obviously not. Where they soft on national defense? No. In short, they were about as non-progressive, or non-liberal as it is possible to be. And yet, Sadow cynically, and cruelly, misuses Neimoller to cover the tracks of his political lineage (a learned choice, it should be noted, not something he was born to). Modern conservatism cannot embrace its past, because much of it is ugly. That isn't to tar all modern right-wing allegiants with that brush. But should they choose to deliberately deny that heritage, and apply it to its antithesis (try finding GOP Jews, gays, gypsies, intellectuals, or liberals these days) then they should be shamed. A strong philosophy can embrace even that which it would prefer to forget. A weak one obfuscates. Sadow knows better, but cannot face it.Julius Lebernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-9524079136413528872015-04-22T08:21:25.556-05:002015-04-22T08:21:25.556-05:00A patently offensive and delusional argument put f...A patently offensive and delusional argument put forth by Mr. Sadow, who bases his entire argument on the misguided belief that homosexuality is a choice. You can't tell me that an LSU-S professor who never hesitates to tell anyone they're either "illogical" or an "idiot" actually believes every human being is born heterosexual and that any homosexual behavior is a deliberate choice made against their guaranteed given nature. Then comes more of the standard conservative response to this issue, which is to shift blame and play the victim; as others have said here, Sadow is essentially hanging the bigot placard on people who have pointed out his bigotry (as well as his petty morals and false piety). Even worse, he then makes a reductio ad Hitlerum argument, as if liberals are making some sort of requirement of "branding" of religious people to set them aside for ill-treatment.<br />Sadow's dogged insistence that Christians are suffering some kind of oppression in the form of liberalism is possibly his most idiotic position ever, even for a person dumb enough or evil enough to insist that trickle-down economics actually works. Christians are not being rounded up and being harassed; churches are not being shut down via excessive regulation, in the manner of Bobby Jindal shutting down women's health care clinics; Christian businesses are not being boycotted en masse; rocks are not being thrown through windows. Yet Mr. Sadow, ever in favor of "less government" when it comes to care of the poor and helpless, believes the government needs to step in and guarantee the rights of pompous Christian celibates such as himself.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-54325822597886915382015-04-21T16:29:14.510-05:002015-04-21T16:29:14.510-05:00Its a very old tactic of conservatism - to play vi...Its a very old tactic of conservatism - to play victim, as if white Christians have carried the weight of servitude and stigma all these years. What these foolish bills, and the hysterical responses to any criticism, such as that in Mr Sadow's overwrought effort, illustrate is the complete failure of one more of conservatisms historical (hysterical?) front lines. <br />Conservatism is forever in retreat by design, for it is backward looking by nature. Broadly speaking, progressivism is interested in expanding the future, in opening up humanity and culture, in adding ingredients, in elevating that which is different. In optimism. Progress. Conservatism, conversely, is all about the past, in returning to a bygone era (that actually never was), in nostalgia, in stopping progress, turning back clocks, and restoring that which has already gone. Conserving. The clues are in the words used! Why look back? Because, for some groups, power lies in the past - authority over those that have come since, be they black, brown, Chinese, Slavs, Jews, uppity women, and now gays. All have at some point threatened the status quo, and all have won, which is fitting, as the US is historically a very liberal place, made up of conservative people. Inconsistent, I know. Its a country, and people, constantly struggling with its worst instincts (xenophobia, small-minded parochialism, overt racism, and so on - the stuff of the modern Religious Right) and constantly losing. r winning, if you prefer. For Mr Sadow, the losses mount up. For the rest of us, those not fixated with determining our own identity by establishing an antagonist (which modern conservatism requires, as a means of indicating what is now - 'bad', and comparing it against what was then - 'good'), then things keep on getting rosier…<br />Julius Lebernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-30741463704926559462015-04-15T15:59:55.287-05:002015-04-15T15:59:55.287-05:00I don't think Sadow is lacking compassion, jus...I don't think Sadow is lacking compassion, just empathy (the Achilles heel of conservatism, especially on the religious right). They aren't the same things. Sadow, in accordance with modern religious conservatism, values conformity. This means his compassion extends to his own his kin, his like - but stops at those who are 'unlike' - the 'other'. Doesn't have to be 'gay', but that is the group most tormenting the religious right at the moment, so that is the group that is the target of laughable claims of 'persecution' of white Christians. Lack of empathy is the reason religion even continues among an educated populace. How many times have we been told that, without a magic character in the sky threating us, we are free to injure and abuse without consequence. But we no longer need it to stop us from being 'bad' to each other UNLESS you are of such a mind (so lacking in empathy) that you cant understand why you should behave civically and morally WITHOUT the threat of superstitious punishment. Ironically, a basic understanding of the Golden Rule buttresses all non-theistic behaviors, and isolates the superstitious who cannot understand it, even as it claims centerstage in the very religion they fail to adhere to. If you cant be nice to people without fear of punishment, youre little more than a household pet, morally speaking - acting under duress, and awaiting the rolled-up newspaper. Its no way to live in non-medieval world. Reminds me of an old joke. Jesus says 'believe in me and you will be saved'. Skeptic asks 'saved from what?" and Jesus replies 'What i'll do to you if you don't believe in me'Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-50937276397867494592015-04-14T09:09:46.594-05:002015-04-14T09:09:46.594-05:00Mr. Sadow - Take heed: at his speech to the Legisl...Mr. Sadow - Take heed: at his speech to the Legislature yesterday, Jindal's endorsement of this "religious freedom" bill was met with absolute silence from the entire chamber. It was a very powerful message sent to Jindal. The Legislature will not support this bill, and for once, Jindal's isn't going to be able to summarily fire everyone who doesn't agree with him.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-74108473703130178462015-04-02T11:50:12.885-05:002015-04-02T11:50:12.885-05:00As you have clearly stated, economics and greed di...As you have clearly stated, economics and greed dictate that "I ain't bakin' no gay wedding cake" will probably not translate into "I ain't contracting to build this same-sex couple's 500k house."<br /><br />However, "stunt" legislation of this type can seem unnecessary and often illogical. With society at large unwilling to both declare homosexuality a crime and marriage a contractual union that must result in heterosexual consummation, we are only left with religious contexts with which to judge these issues. Under scrutiny, even the "community standards" parameters used to gauge obscenity or the legality of prostitution and gambling seem flimsy at best. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-73284001918859197592015-04-01T13:25:03.931-05:002015-04-01T13:25:03.931-05:00Realizing this is April Fool's day, I still wo...Realizing this is April Fool's day, I still wonder which scenario you would prefer:<br /><br />- the "connected" journalism professor taken down a peg, or<br /><br />- the beleaguered political science professor getting his own hands on some of that sweet, sweet tenure cash (all "privately" generated, of course). <br /><br />The real problem facing higher ed is a general mindset that considers both guys to be tweed-clad freeloaders who should instead be making "real money" lawyerin' and contractin' - the state's only truly respected occupational choices. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-82869031993059050952015-03-27T06:32:53.671-05:002015-03-27T06:32:53.671-05:00It is simply mindless to say that capital punishme...<br />It is simply mindless to say that capital punishment DOES or DOES NOT deter horrible crimes.<br /><br />You cannot prove it in any scientific way, and you know that.<br /><br />We do it because of our innate need for retribution.<br /><br />We don't need to change our methods; we need to stop doing it.<br /><br />If is so effective as a deterrent, let's start doing it publicly in the courthouse square again, like we used to, and leave the body for a period for everyone to see.<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-18756378487164057222015-03-27T06:27:20.754-05:002015-03-27T06:27:20.754-05:00
Touche!<br />Touche!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10214951.post-63292811336551601592015-03-26T10:54:02.320-05:002015-03-26T10:54:02.320-05:00Your research seems incomplete, and your logic som...Your research seems incomplete, and your logic somewhat faulty.<br /><br />Please resubmit with additional research incorporating the economic benefits of a healthier, longer living and therefore more entrepreneurial workforce. <br /><br />Also keep in mind that this would also be an emerging, enterprising demographic that would presumably no longer be a drag on "needlessly expensive" pension plans and other public add-ons and would therefore remain in the workforce nigh until death. <br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com