New Years Eve Day started out great. I let my fire stop around 8pm the night before to clean out the ashes. I then decided to not relight it till the next morning to save wood. The temp outside was mild I took the chance. It worked. While chilly the following morning it was ok and I soon had a fire going. By the time I got out of the hot shower, I dressed in 65 degree warmth, and the coffee was perking on the fire. Now that is Green Self Sufficient Conservatism. Now if I can just become Compassionate. lol
Anyway, I was a happy camper in my “little house in the hood”.
I couldn’t soak up much heat however; as I was in a hurry to get to Carmen’s for our weekly conservative get together and breakfast at 8am. I made it on time and a good time was had. Jim brought in “Weapons of Choice” a book I had given him for Christmas and he was full of praise about it. I told him there were two more in the series and he said he had already ordered them. Jon scooped up Jim’s copy and I said I had ordered more used copies for our burgeoning informal Thursday morning book club. That would be my first donation; Susie and Marve were the originators.
Click pic to enlarge
Bob S wasn't in the pic. Sorry Bob
State Representative Goeff Hansen stopped by for breakfast and we had an interesting talk about what the state government was up to. Goeff talked of the deal hammered out in the Legislature for the new Bay City coal fired plant to be built. The deal included the need to in effect cut the Coal generated electric output in the State. They will do this by shutting down up to 7 of the oldest coal fired plants in Michigan. Below is the link to the Chronicle piece about it.
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http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index.ssf/2009/12/consumers_energy_may_close_mus.html
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In Muskegon the BC Cobb plant is high on the list of 7 to be shut down. The Cobb plant this year alone will generate close to 4 million $$s in property and personal taxes. That will be a huge loss for a city that just had a short fall of a million and had a tough time handling that. There is also the loss of jobs in the area. The only upside of this will be the opening up of a big section of Lake Front property. Hope they don’t build another parking ramp.
Goeff was able to shed some light on the politics of the deal. It was fun listening to some of the un- reportable back room negotiations that went on. If you expect me to break confidence, you’re crazy, you’ll have to come to Carmen’s yourself.
He also talked about the Windmill Farm being sought offshore Of Ludington. 200 square miles of our Lake Michigan will be off limits. 200 square miles of the floor of Lake Michigan will be dug and drilled and filled with untold thousands of tons of concrete and steel and plastics for a technology that isn’t yet perfected. The maintenance cost is something everyone seems to brush off. Goeff said that he had asked the promoter or his guy I forget which, about why not a nuclear plant which would take up way less land and generate more electricity, and he was told we couldn’t get rid of the fuel.
As is common at our little get together at Carmen’s, I threw a little snark in about if we sold the fuel to Iran for a lot of money it would be a win win situation.
Everyone seemed to think it wasn’t a totally bad idea. Lol/ I should of added we could do this with a concession for a signed agreement that they wouldn’t bomb anyone with it and we could wave it in the air and yell “Peace in Our Time”. Oh well. Moments lost, are gone forever.
Next, on the list after blogging and the other stuff I do; I met up with Marion and his crew at the Nelson Community Association Food Bank building on Beidler where we put together the recycled gallon milk jugs I save all year, sand and votive candles.
I only got one pic of Marion and one of the young men helping.
Click pic to enlarge
We then put them in my truck and proceeded to put them out in the Downtown area along the sidewalks of the stores, churches and offices which donate to the Food Bank for this service. Normally we do it on Christmas Eve but due to the weather we did it this year on New Year’s Eve. Just that morning I received in the post 20 LED battery Tea Lights which I hope will work better than the actual candles.
We made the rounds and were pretty cold by the time we got done. The temperature had dropped and the wind was getting pretty gusty by the time we hit our last stop, the Chamber of Commerce. Altogether we put out over 150 candles. We had a crew of 5so it really went pretty well compared to last year. Below is a pic of the house on Houston and 4th. The candles are around the side walk on this house.
Click pic to enlarge
In the past, the candles continually would blow out and get put out by the rainy snow we always seem to have on Christmas Eve. If these LED candles work out I’ll raise enough to buy a couple hundred for the years to come. While they cost around 1$ @ vs the Candles at 20 cents @; the LED ones can be used over and over for 80 hours or I figure a guaranteed 4 years which brings the price down to 25 cents @. For the amount of time saved and frustration saved, it is well worth it. Also the candles will stay lit and our “Product” will be much improved. Donations could go up. I noticed though, the LED candles were not as bright as the regular candles. I’ll keep looking.
Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative
PS. Research about our Carmen discussion on the Coal Fired Electric Plant.
Link below is a classic case of how two different papers report the same thing. Note the second paragraph.
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http://www.examiner.com/x-18664-Detroit-Business-Development-Examiner~y2009m12d30-Michigan-approves-new-coalfired-electrical-power-plant
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It says that it will create a $1.2 billion dollar boost to the Michigan economy as it adds 830 megawatts to the grid. Then the article goes on to explain the temporary jobs created to build it and the 100 permanent jobs to run it. WOW oh but by the way, how many jobs are going to be lost and what will the loss to the economy of Michigan be by closing down 7 power plants and taking off the grid 980 megawatts?
The headlines should have been by any paper with a spine (no pun intended) Two West Michigan Towns face bankruptcy due to Bay City’s political muscle and the Governor’s Political Maneuvering.
Yet another victem of the Green Granholm effect –
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http://michiganmessenger.com/21615/nmu-cancels-plans-for-coal-fired-power-plant
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How good for us is it that in June 09 that NMU through Green PC pressure and lawsuits from the Sierra Club was forced to stop plans for a clean coal power plant of 10 Mega watts. How many jobs weren’t created by that (temporary and permanent); how much of a boost to the economy?
Let us not forget how LA gleefully reported our governor leading the way to cut these coal plants. This was back in Feb 09. Talk about trickle down “Detroit-OG-enomics”. Don’t get it? Just think of the effects of G (Granholm) facilitated O (Obamanomics) to give the world a cookie cutter to reproduce the destruction and demotion of Detroit to 3rd world status. If I could of found an appropriate Porker whose last name started with an H It could have been “Detroit-HOG-onomics” A better picture of the animals at the “public tax payer/real people producing” trough these bloodsuckers feed from.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5130IN20090204
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Geeze I was feeling pretty good till I added that PS.
It is good for me to remember that by doing things like I did with Carmen’s and the Food Bank Candle thing I felt good and by writing about what was wrong I felt bad.
My New Year’s Resolution then is to write like crazy so I'll have to spend most of my time balancing it out by DOING good things. Man that will fill up my whole year. lol
More Regards and Feeling better, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative
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