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posted by Fnord666 on Sunday January 22 2017, @12:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the campaign-finance dept.

The Christian Science Monitor reports on legislation proposed by Republican law-makers in Wyoming:

The bill would require utilities to use "eligible resources" to meet 95 percent of Wyoming's electricity needs in 2018, and all of its electricity needs in 2019.

Those "eligible resources" are defined solely as coal, hydroelectric, natural gas, nuclear, oil, and individual net metering.

The latter would encompass houses (and businesses?) with solar, wind or co-generation equipment. Utility-scale generation, however, could face a $10/MWh penalty.

The article notes that

Wyoming is the nation's largest coal producer [...] nearly 90 percent of the electricity generated in Wyoming came from coal in September 2016, the most recent month with available data.

A PDF of the bill, SF0071, is available on the Wyoming legislature's Web site.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Bethany.Saint on Sunday January 22 2017, @05:03PM

    by Bethany.Saint (5900) on Sunday January 22 2017, @05:03PM (#457367)

    WTF?! Crony-capitalism is a Republican ideology not a progressive one. Now we've got a right-wing-nut for a president, business executives in charge of all the cabinet positions, and a Republican party bought and paid for by crony-capitalism. The newly created corporatocracy is a Republican wet dream.

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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 22 2017, @05:55PM

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday January 22 2017, @05:55PM (#457389) Homepage Journal

    You misunderstood. I meant that progressives often can't, or have no interest in being able to, tell crony-capitalism from the real deal. Both sides engage in it quite a hell of a lot though; it is truly a non-partisan practice.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @06:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @06:26PM (#457398)

      That is capitalism, but you've just got your blinders on, so of course it's impossible for you to see.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday January 22 2017, @07:43PM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday January 22 2017, @07:43PM (#457404) Journal

      He got you there. I can't think of anything more capitalist than buying legislation and legislators. Of course, now that the subject of regulatory capture has come up, you're going to say it's all the fault of those damn regulations, being all abusable like that, and we should stop regulating. But guns, of course, don't kill people; people do, and there is no analogy between those statements what-so-freaking-ever. Hmm...

      Maybe stop and ask yourself: why do we, humans, engage in economic activity? Once you have the answer, you'll realize why putting the ideological purity of ANY system, ANYWHERE along the spectrum from utter laissez-faire to hard collectivism, is a moral failure, the moral equivalent of a massive priority inversion bug.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 23 2017, @06:52PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday January 23 2017, @06:52PM (#457736) Homepage Journal

        now that the subject of regulatory capture has come up, you're going to say it's all the fault of those damn regulations, being all abusable like that, and we should stop regulating.

        Yet again you project what you think I am over top of mountains of evidence to the contrary. I am not anti-regulation. I simply think promoting competition is a better use of the law than hamstringing any company that does too well out of pure spite.

        Like all these megacorp within the same market mergers? Fuuuuuck that noise. That is anti-competition and thus bad.

        Phone/cable company Internet service duopolies? Limit rates based on areas where there is actual competition if there is no serious competition in a given area. Charge no tax on the revenue acquired in an area for the first three years of a company entering into that market as competition.

        Capitalism does need a guiding hand but that hand belonging to a socialist/communist/progressive is as bad as it belonging to a corrupt official.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday January 23 2017, @11:02PM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday January 23 2017, @11:02PM (#457845) Journal

          Then get your useless beer-swilling drunk-shooting lazy-fishing ass out there and make some change happen.

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:10AM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday January 24 2017, @02:10AM (#457898) Homepage Journal

            Pass. I think in logic not in feelz. Almost nobody votes on logic; even around these parts where we highly value a good bit of it. It'd be like learning a foreign language that wouldn't even let me watch anime without subs.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 24 2017, @03:09AM

              by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @03:09AM (#457922) Journal

              Hah. El gringo piensa que no hablo otros idiomas. Soy desde el Bronx, cabrón; mi español es mejor que mi japonés. How many does your dumb ass speak? Hell, you sound like you barely have a grip on English, like most Americans.

              And what a poor excuse not to go and fight for your supposed principles. I was right on the money from day one pegging you as a worthless, solipsistic coward. At least I have the courage to fight for mine, even if the cause seems hopeless. Gods, my balls are bigger than yours and they're ovaries!

              --
              I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 24 2017, @04:25AM

                by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday January 24 2017, @04:25AM (#457945) Homepage Journal

                You forget, I don't actually want things to get better. I want them to keep getting worse until we can throw this corrupt POS government out and start fresh. It's why I voted for Obama twice and was not remotely disappointed.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:11AM

                  by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:11AM (#457986) Journal

                  I love you "burn it to the ground and start it all over!" types. You're either egomaniacs, driven by some delusion that you're some kind of temporarily-embarrassed scion of the rightfully-ruling elite, or else you're on a level with a suicide bomber packing enough explosive to kill over a billion people.

                  Either way, the self-centered, amoral nihilism is staggering.

                  If you're too weak and cowardly to fight, if you've got nothing to contribute, *kill yourself.* Lord knows you have enough big metal cock substitutes lying around. Chug a few beers first if your courage comes in liquid form. Me, I'm gonna fight, and I'm gonna *keep* fighting until I can't anymore. And then they better bury me under something heavy, and never, ever, ever turn their backs on it...

                  --
                  I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 24 2017, @11:15AM

                    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday January 24 2017, @11:15AM (#458047) Homepage Journal

                    I love it when you tell me what I want. Shows how astoundingly clueless you are. I want to fuck off fishing, sling a little bit of code, and continue having a quite happy life. Running shit is like the job absolutely farthest down my list of jobs I'd like to do. I'd enjoy the "watering the tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants and patriots" bits more and getting shot at is never especially fun.

                    --
                    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 24 2017, @05:11PM

                      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @05:11PM (#458150) Journal

                      Well, that's on you. Just remember that old saw about the hottest places in Hell being reserved for those who stayed uninvolved in a time of crisis. It's fine though; you admit you're a useless, cowardly oxygen thief, so at least there's no delusion on that score.

                      --
                      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @09:01PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @09:01PM (#457428)

      See that is the problem with all the systems. We put our faith in "the system" taking care of the human problems that crop up, but we have to design systems that factor in the human ability to screw things up.

      Communism, Capitalism, Socialism, Whateverism, they all fail the human test. Greedy humans will try and subvert the system, we have to build in checks and balances to keep any one person/group from gaining too much power over others. The only clear answer I can come up with is to do away with the pyramid power structure. Redefine management as simply another business role. If you remember your high school group projects then management is the "facilitator" role, they shouldn't be judge jury and executioner. Separation of powers was the smartest move, now we need to reassess government roles and redefine their scope of power.

      As for your insult of progressives, realize that conservatives are the opposite. They'll defend the idea of capitalism to their own detriment, looking up to people like Trump as some shining beacon of hope just because he made a lot of money. They also tear down positive systems meant to help people, believing various lies that "capitalists" tell them in an attempt to create new locked-in markets.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 23 2017, @06:41PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday January 23 2017, @06:41PM (#457732) Homepage Journal

        They'll defend the idea of capitalism to their own detriment

        Some of em. Can't really call it a conservative thing though; libertarians lurve it way more than conservatives do. I guess it's just less absolute when you're judging your own preferred system as opposed to one you irrationally despise.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @09:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @09:22PM (#457437)

      Maybe if we had an actual example where real deal capitalism didn't morph into crony-capitalism, we'd be able to tell the difference.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @09:29PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 22 2017, @09:29PM (#457440)

    Crony-capitalism is a Republican ideology not a progressive one

    Not accurate. Progressivism != Socialism

    Your hypothesis is incorrect for anyone who is not actually Left of center (anti-Capitalism).
    This excludes almost all USAians, who have gladly swallowed their indoctrination by Capitalists (a constant barrage of commercial ads) and their indoctrination by public schools which are obviously forbidden to speak well of Socialism or even to make honest comparisons between Capitalism and Socialism. [democracyatwork.info]
    Broadcast in Frisco Bay Area and streamed live: Fridays 10AM Pacific time; 10.7MB webcasts archived for 2 weeks [kpfa.org]
    Broadcast in the Los Angeles Area (112,000 watts!) and streamed live: Sundays 9AM Pacific time; no local archive [kpfk.org]
    Also available via numerous other Pacifica Radio affiliates.

    While The Blue Party may have been noticeably different at some time in the past (arguable), since The Blues chose George McGovern as their 1972 presidential candidate and were creamed, The Blues have shifted even more strongly toward the pro-business region of the political palate (and have become actively anti-Labor).
    This is strongly demonstrated by the accomplishments of Slick Willie. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [truth-out.org]

    The Blues are NOT anti-Crony-Capitalism ; the "best" that can be said about them is that they simply cater to a slightly different segment of the business community.

    As economist and historian Thomas Piketty noted in his 696-page analysis of 250 years of Capitalism, that economic system leads to more and more concentrations of wealth (The 1 Percent) and concentrations of political power (Oligarchy --a bad imitation of Democracy, where the rich buy up the gov't).

    If you want to get rid of the problem, you have to get rid of the Capitalist system.
    The logical replacement is Socialism, which embodies distributed power and wealth, strong Democracy (with everyone getting a vote and all votes being equal)[1], and public ownership of natural monopolies (roads, bridges, water systems, electricity, natural gas, communications infrastructure, etc.).[2]

    [1] This will obviously require publicly-funded elections.

    [2] Just watch Trump do the OPPOSITE, selling off public assets to his cronies for pennies and granting contracts for e.g. building roads that will be privately-owned and will have tolls.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

    • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 24 2017, @04:12AM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @04:12AM (#457942) Journal

      You know, Gewg, *any* economic system can in theory promote human flourishing. Anything from hard collectivism to utter laissez-faire could in theory work, and work just as well. When these systems fail, it is because they fail to take human nature into account. We should focus on figuring out a system, and there may be more than one, that stops the concentration, the accelerating, self-reinforcing concentration, of wealth and resources and power into fewer and fewer hands.

      Nothing in nature that remains stable has this sort of positive feedback; indeed, it's *negative* feedbacks, the dampeners on the oscillators, that hold a system more or less steady in the face of fluctuating inputs.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:36PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:36PM (#458224)

        *any* economic system can in theory promote human flourishing

        As mentioned, Prof. Thomas Piketty has studied 250 years of Capitalism.
        He has determined that a system whose ONLY goal is to maximize profits for The Ownership Class leads to cartels, monopoly, and a social situation that is less and less stable.
        I will argue that the ultimate expression of Capitalism is Fascism.

        OTOH, the (Socialist) Mondragon worker-owned cooperative (in continuous operation since 1956)--and, to a lesser extent, the town of Marinaleda, which has a Socialist mayor who has been continuously reelected since 1979--demonstrate that a system whose primary goal is social stability does well at achieving that.

        In Italy, the effects of the Maracora law, enacted in 1985, which uses lump-sum unemployment payouts to kick-start worker-owned cooperatives, are similar as well.

        It's clear to me that a choice has to be made at the start as to what the goal is.
        If social stability is the goal, then having a single Worker-Owner Class is the way to achieve that.

        I'm currently listening to Mitch Jeserich's "Letters and Politics" program on Pacifica.
        The year 1898 was pivotal in USAian politics.
        Overproduction by USAian farmers and industrialists was such that USA needed foreign markets to dump the stuff.
        This led to the invasion and occupation of Hawaii and the Spanish-American War and yet another ratcheting up of USAian Imperialism/Colonialism/Mercantilism.

        The boom and bust cycle inherent to Capitalism is unstable.
        For a stable society, it must be avoided.
        All systems are NOT equal.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

        • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday January 24 2017, @08:01PM

          by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday January 24 2017, @08:01PM (#458231) Journal

          Well, yes, which is why I said *in theory.* In practice, where unregulated or badly-regulated capitalism runs into trouble is 1) dealing with goods and services for which demand is inelastic, like healthcare, and 2) when it gets its claws into government and the military and starts having wars waged for economic reasons.

          You're pretty much entirely correct here, though given Dunbar's Number a.k.a. the Monkeysphere, I'm not sure the coop approach is scalable :/

          --
          I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:14PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:14PM (#458267)

            The key, it appears, is that all ELECTIONS for public office MUST BE PUBLICLY FUNDED and that that element MUST be written into the founding document of the democracy with a clause that it is NOT AMENDABLE; if folks think that that needs to be changed, it must be done via a constitutional convention--with everything in the founding document up for grabs.

            ...otherwise, you end up with Oligarchy/Fascism.

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:43PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @09:43PM (#458279)

            What's "scalable"?

            Mondragon started with 6 guys; they now have 100,000 worker-owners.

            Starting in 1985, the Maracora law has spawned 8100 co-ops in a single region in northern Italy (Emilia-Romagna).

            ...and even if a 100 percent conversion of companies isn't achieved, wouldn't it be great if folks had a -choice- of buying -much- of their stuff from a worker-owned/maximize-wellbeing/profits-stay-local operation as opposed to a maximize-profits/headquartered-in-another-place/exports-jobs corporation?

            ...and wouldn't the really giant stuff that isn't scalable be considered a natural monopoly which should be publicly owned?

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]