Divine irony. Rated. Let's hope that two wrongs will somehow result in a right.

I'm confused about the EP. Is it possible that some oxen owners don't know when their charges have been GOREd?

I'm not sure about the EP either, given that this post is largely nonsensical. What exactly is your point? That Feinstein is some environmentalist or liberal icon and is now "regulating" green energy off the table? That Kennedy can't invest in an energy project without having to don the mantle of Capitalist Greedhead?

Diane Feinstein has been a friend to Big Business her entire political life. If she is using her power as a government bureaucrat to stop a solar/wind energy project in California, you can bet the farm on the fact that she's doing it to help her friends at PG&E.

For a state as bankrupt and energy starved as California is supposed to be, we sure have a mighty fine standard of living. But please, just take my word for it - we'd prefer you not come here to find out for yourself.

Of course Ted Kennedy stopped a wind generation project 5 miles of the coast of Martha's Vineyard because it infringed on his buddies sailing. Screw the millions who would benefit from the clean energy those millionaires need their boating playground.

I am sure if the area in question was filled with the poor and powerless, the project would be full steam ahead. "You know for the good of all."

I can't read the article, but I do think I can weigh in on the topic as a Californian and the daughter of someone who has worked in the power industry for decades.

The Mojave Desert is protected. The idea is that the Desert should be as pristine and untouched by man as possible, unfortunately, because of lack of funding, it's been abused. It deserves the same protections that a popular place like Yosemite receives. There are many other appropriate places that are not national parks that could be utilized.

It's quite easy to say this is simply a matter of lots of wind and sun for the taking, but there is more than that to any power plant, regardless of the power source. The construction of the wind turbines or solar panels will have an impact on the land. The maintenance of them will have an impact as well. And they would have to be guarded. Deserts are incredibly sensitive to changes. It's common to think that a desert is devoid of life, when in fact it is often more diverse than other climes and teems with life. Building a plant of any sort is not only going to have an impact, but it will be ongoing and effect a permanent change. It will destroy the nature of the place. The desert is harsh. It snows there, the wind can blow so hard that turbines would not be operational for much of the time (they require gentle winds.) Any equipment in this place would need more than the usual repairs you find in other places. More people, heavy equipment, more damage.

Not only that, but a power plant of any ilk is not going to create that many jobs. The jobs they would create would be highly specialized and those employed would come from a cadre of people who work the industry through out the world. Workers would be imported. Local retailers might benefit, but unless you are a Californian with a degree in Engineering and years of experience, you're not going to get hired. It would have little impact on the economy.

Maybe her check didn't arrive from the right people.

"It won't be long and Baghdad will have a better electricity supply than California.

A comedian could not make this stuff up."

You're right about that, because that crack about Baghdad was decidedly unfunny.

Gordon, I think we should simply wish the new editor good tidings and accept whatever gifts we can get.

Lonnie, I think the point was clear in the first sentence that it is about hypocrisy. Your commentary about Feinstein and PG&E seems to support the thesis. Stellaa of course has chimed in that she too disowns Feinstein. However, the result is the same. Democrats tend to oppose all energy projects, regardless of the situation. The party of "no."

As to the standard of living in California, I am not convinced that paying way too much for housing and approving too many government services to pay for and then begging for bailouts from the rest of us counts as demonstrating your state's economic superiority.

Marcella, the reality is that any energy project is going to have some impact on the land and the people. But, unless we want to forego a modern society, we have to produce energy. In this particular spat between Feinstein and Kennedy, we get to see that neither understands the nature of their own positions since they have now trapped each other. Also, you may want to direct your doubts about a "green job" economy to President Obama. Maybe he will quick promising them to us once he knows that they will not happen.

MTodd and Blackfon, you are both onto something.

Even so called progressive democrats are sell outs and Feinstein was never progressive. monkey fingered.

I'm with you on this one, Steve. At minimum, I'd want to see at least a simple statement of what precisely she's worried about protecting. I don't think merely saying “there might be a problem” is enough of a reason when there is a problem of this enormity in play.

Climate Change is upon us. It will be bad for the whole planet (which includes mankind and its protective laws) if we allow it to proceed without taking aggressive steps. We must move to non-carbon-producing power even if it costs us some species. The significance of the much-mentioned polar bears is not the fact of the bears (though I think they're a beautiful animal and would just as soon see them survive as long as I'm at a safe distance), it's that soon that's going to be us. It's the canary in the coal mine. The environment is changing in realtime. The significance of the bears is that they didn't adapt. We must use our skilled brains to adapt or we'll be just as dead.

(Is this a good place to mention my holiday poem A Christmas Peril?)

Oh, and you're right about the jobs, too.s thi

McG, I think you may be right about the new editor. Gary Baumgarten has posted a brilliant piece about Obama's lack of priorities (which of course has attracted the usual bilge from the lunatic left) and, lo and behold, it's also an EP. Could this be the dawn of a new era?

DiFi is a DINO and a war monger. Consider the source.

The Feinstein move is rich in ironies of all kinds.

1. She notes that much of the money for the protected land came from private sources that then donated the land to the government.

2. Those donated lands came largely from Wildlands Conservancy, a tax exempt, non profit

3. The Conservancy says the seller, Catellus Corp, gave it an $18 million “discount”. In layman’s language that would be an $18 million tax deduction for Catellus. Assuming the appraisal for the land was not inflated as appraisals of such “charitable donations” often are.

4. Who co-founded and funded the Wildlands Conservancy? David Gelbaum, billionare founder of Quercus Trust, a Southern California venture capital fund specializing in “green” tech.

5. Gelbaum’s money enabled Wildlands Trust to purchase the Catellus properties and donate them to the federal government.

6. The normally anonymous Gelbaum made news in December ’09 when he revealed donations of over $47 million to the Sierra Club and $94 million to the ACLU (25% of its budget). Gelbaum is also a big political contributor—all to Democrats including Sen. Boxer and more than $33,000 to Obama, plus tens of thousands to the Democratic National Committee and the Sierra Club political fund.

7. Gelbaum announced he could not make such donations in 2010. Gelbaum, a math whiz specializing in computer modeling of stock prices, gave the reason for being unable to fund his favored charities: “My investments in alternative, clean energy companies have placed me in a highly illiquid position as a result of the general credit crisis in the American and world financial systems."

No one can fault Mr. Gelbaum for having put his money where his mouth and his heart are, but the results are instructive. By abandoning his wildly successful logic and economic math, he has achieved the following:

A. Put two very large charities in the position of having too many eggs in one basket (a novice business mistake), then devastated the budgets of those charities by bad investing

B. Made a highly public case that green tech is not a good investment. That undermines a major policy claim of the Obama administration—that green tech creates jobs and is a good investment

C. By helping put millions of acres of California land off limits to solar energy, he may have destroyed the state’s ability to achieve its legislated goal of generating 33% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.