Oops. Forgot to link to who I was citing. Fix’d.

I know you knew this already, but he just (on the Senate floor) claimed “nuclear power plants, that’s carbon-free” in the “debate” on cap-and-trade.

Unfortunately, when you take the total footprint into account, not so much:

According to Sovacool’s analysis, nuclear power, at 66 gCO2e/kWh emissions is well below scrubbed coal-fired plants, which emit 960 gCO2e/kWh, and natural gas-fired plants, at 443 gCO2e/kWh. However, nuclear emits twice as much carbon as solar photovoltaic, at 32 gCO2e/kWh, and six times as much as onshore wind farms, at 10 gCO2e/kWh. “A number in the 60s puts it well below natural gas, oil, coal and even clean-coal technologies. On the other hand, things like energy efficiency, and some of the cheaper renewables are a factor of six better. So for every dollar you spend on nuclear, you could have saved five or six times as much carbon with efficiency, or wind farms,” Sovacool says. Add to that the high costs and long lead times for building a nuclear plant about $3 billion for a 1,000 megawatt plant, with planning, licensing and construction times of about 10 years and nuclear power is even less appealing.

He’s also whining about people giving less in the way of charitable contributions because of lower taxes. Specifically, that doing this takes away the “incentive to make charitable contributions.” Let’s think about this for a moment

WHAT

He just said “the Rosetta stone is where you go to get the answer to the mystery of life.” JESUS H. CHRIST ON A NEON-LIT POGO STICK, HE IS IGNORANT. In any
Why the hell is it just two GOPers going back and forth? >.< Ah, it's because they're splitting their time. And all of this was just to talk up this WSJ article, in order to scream about class warfare.

I give you this one excerpt:

Complaints have emerged recently, on the right and left, that the $787 billion stimulus bill will produce less growth and jobs than planned because too much of it goes to social programs and transfer payments, or “weak” Keynesian stimulus. The administration’s Romer-Bernstein study on the stimulus estimated by the end of next year it would increase jobs by 3.6 million and GDP by 3.7%.

So apparently social programs, such as oh, food stamps, are “weak” Keynesian stimulus now. First of all, they’re not weak. Second, tax cuts are a weak stimulus (no scare quotes needed). From CNNMoney:

In findings echoed by other economists and studies, he said the study shows the fastest way to infuse money into the economy is through expanding the food-stamp program. For every dollar spent on that program $1.73 is generated throughout the economy, he said.

“If someone who is literally living paycheck to paycheck gets an extra dollar, it’s very likely that they will spend that dollar immediately on whatever they need – groceries, to pay the telephone bill, to pay the electric bill,” he said.

…

The report pointed to expanding unemployment benefits as the program that gets the next biggest bang for the buck. That’s because, although the unemployed are already getting checks, they need to spend the money. For every dollar spent here, the economy would see a return of $1.64, Zandi said.

…

Finally, Moody’s report says business incentives such as tax breaks for buying new equipment – so-called accelerated depreciation – would give the least bang for the buck and potentially provide the slowest infusion of money. A dollar spent there would generate only 33 cents in the economy because, Zandi said, it takes longer for businesses to implement any benefit received.

Third, social programs and transfer payments are no more Keynesian than fresh apple butter is a conjugation of the verb “to be.” He needs to google the term and figure out what it means.

Oh god, now Lieberman is up talking about Saddam Hussein. At least he’s talking about something that actually happened – the gassing of the Kurds. He’s reading from one of Samantha Powers’ books now, an account of the attacks. What is he leading up to??? Ah, this is the anniversary of one of those attacks.

…

Ah, I see. He is gearing up to call for an attack on Iran, and whitewashing the Iraq War. “Look at the Kurds! They’re doing wonderfully! Go us!” Never mind that our ally Turkey wants to stomp them into the ground, never mind what the rest of Iraq contemplates. He also has the balls to say that the Kurds now have the rights enjoyed by every other Iraqi citizen, brushing right over the status of women in that state.

Phew, no call for Iran to be nuked.

And they can’t even get a damn quorum in the Senate right now.