Wind turbines make bat lungs explode

Weird story of the week:

Click HERE for full story

"While searching for bat carcasses under wind turbines, we noticed that many of the carcasses had no external injuries or no visible cause of death," says Erin Baerwald of the University of Calgary in Canada.

Baerwald and colleagues collected 188 dead bats from wind farms across southern Alberta, and determined their cause of death. They found that 90% of the bats had signs of internal haemorrhaging, but only half showed any signs of direct contact with the windmill blades.
Only 8% had signs of external injuries but no internal injuries.

The movement of wind-turbine blades creates a vortex of lower air pressure around the blade tips similar to the vortex at the tip of aeroplane wings. Others have suggested that this could be lethal to bats, but until now no-one had carried out necropsies to verify the theory.

Convention 'Greening' Goes Awry

The Democrats have embarked on a highly visible effort to make their
convention the "greenest" ever, focusing on everything from expanded recycling to more creative programs like encouraging Denver restaurants to offer "lean 'n' green" meals made with healthful, organic, and locally sourced ingredients.

But not all of their environmentally friendly initiatives have gone as planned. Take the hotel card keys, for example. Instead of the traditional plastic cards, the Sheraton in downtown handed guests Visa-sponsored swipe cards "made from sustainably-harvested wood." The plan lasted all of a few hours. By Saturday night, enough guests had reported problems getting into their rooms with the wooden cards that the front desk clerks had abandoned them and switched back to the plastic cards. A clerk said they were now handing out one of each and suggested that the wooden one could kept as a souvenir.

From an Exxon-Mobil (EM) tax attorney:

Finally got a chance to pull the 10-K.

It is easy to confuse revenue with income before taxes. No one pays taxes on revenue. So when one says "Exxon paid a very modest U.S. tax rate of 6.4% of its income before taxes" it is calculating the amount on revenue. Before one determines what one's income is you subtract all your costs and other deductions. That gives you a net income number before taxes. Corporate taxes are done basically like individual taxes just at higher rates.

total revenue $404,552 billion
total costs/other deductions $334,078 billion
net income before taxes $70,474 billion

According to EM's 10-K they paid $29,864 billion in federal income taxes alone.

That does not include state taxes, franchise taxes, severance taxes, sales and use taxes. The effective income tax rate is 44%. This means that EM paid 44% of their net income of $70,474 billion to the US government.

Some might say "Since EM is getting its oil from foreign holdings at a cost that is a small percentage of the market price, the foreign taxes paid to the countries owning the oil seems arguably justifiable."

What people forget is how much money is invested UPFRONT before oil companies find the oil (if they are lucky).

EM does not include taxes that it collects on behalf of governments. The tax burden included is only the amount ExxonMobil pays not amounts withheld on others behalf.

Some might think that little U.S. tax is paid because many profits are attributed to overseas operations; so that even though EM is a U.S. company, US tax laws don't require payment of taxes on profits of overseas operations. Obviously, it pays the companies to have their accountants set things up so that as much as possible of operations are set up overseas in places with low income tax rates."

The U.S. tax system taxes on a world-wide basis that includes ALL revenue from EM overseas operations. This is very different from most European countries (except UK) that only tax on income generated in their own territory. US based companies have complained for years that this puts them at an unfair advantage to foreign companies. Foreign companies making income in the US only pay US tax on the income generated in the US (not what is generated outside of the US). That is why several large pharmaceutical companies home offices are in foreign jurisdictions like the Caymans or Bahamas so they can avoid US tax. A few years ago a lot of
hub bub was made about companies "outbounding" or "expatriating" causing Congress to change the laws and require a huge exit tax if companies leave the US.

For purposes of full disclosure, what is allowed is a foreign tax credit. So if you pay taxes in a foreign country EM is allowed to offset its US income up to 35% (US corporate tax rate) by the amount of taxes it paid on the income already.

The theory is that a company shouldn't pay taxes on their income twice. However, what you find is that for example, in Norway you pay 78% tax on $100 earned. In the US you can take a credit for only 35% so you subtract $35 from the $100 of income instead of $78 which is what the real cost was. There are also very convoluted rules regarding what type of income can be offset with credits. For example, you can't offset extractive income (getting oil out of the ground) with non-extractive (refining). As you can imagine most foreign taxes are paid
on the oil (extractive income) but we make an awful lot of money on the non-extractive side (transportation, refining, chemicals,) which can't take advantage of the taxes paid on the oil.

DOHERTY: NEW SCIENTIFIC DATA JUSTIFIES REPEALING GLOBAL WARMING RESPONSE ACT

“There are many credible members of the scientific community who have questioned the theory of global warming, and now we have some scientists actually suggesting the earth’s temperatures may be entering a period of dramatic cooling,” said Doherty, R-Warren and Hunterdon. “With this growing level of scientific uncertainty, it makes no sense to enact a new set of economically damaging regulations prompted by the global warming hysteria of recent years.”

Click HERE for full story

'Poisoned Profits': Recycled Junk Science

Shabecoff’s new book, "Poisoned Profits: How Corporate America Is Poisoning Our Children With Toxic Chemicals," claims to "reveal the frightening and expanding dimension of children’s chronic illnesses in the U.S. and link this epidemic to industrial toxins."

In attacking virtually every sort of industrial chemical, Shabecoff implies that almost all childhood illnesses, failed pregnancies and birth defects are attributable to the "42 billion pounds of chemicals per day" either made in or imported into the U.S.

Contrary to Shabecoff’s claim of deteriorating public health, life expectancy, the most objective standard for measuring health, is the highest it has ever been across all race, age and gender groups, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Click HERE for full story

ExxonMobil Profits Evil?

Sunday evening while driving to my parents house I listened to a local talk show. The host is rather intelligent, although I disagree with him 90% of the time. His guest was there to talk about evil ExxonMobil and their record profits. He stated several "facts:"

1. EM spent none of their profit on exploration for new oil,
   
2. EM spent none of their money on developing renewable resources,
   
3. EM should pay a "wind fall" profit tax,
   
4. It is especially heinous that EM spent $8 billion of their profit on stock buy back

Hillary Clinton stated: "There is something seriously wrong with our economy when Exxon's record $11 billion in quarterly profits are seen as a disappointment by Wall Street."

The reality?

• EM made a near record $10.89 billion in its first quarter (analyst expected $11.5 billion)
  
• EM paid a combined $29.3 billion in taxes and royalties ($17.7 billion in taxes and $11.6 billion in royalties) - taxes were 49% of income.
  
• EM spent $5.5 billion (before profit, of course) to develop new sources of oil, up 30% from last year
• EM, and most oil majors, have an internal rate of return on investment of <15%. My chemical plant would be shut down for doing that poorly.
  

Can This Planet Be Saved?

Per NY Times columnist Paul Krugman I am an "immoral" crazy person for opposing action to slow down "man-made" global warming. My mother may be shocked to learn this!

Senator James Inhofe is labeled a "conspiracy theorist" for doubting man's impact on global warming.

Krugman also repeats the often misquoted statement by the Energy Information Administration that new offshore drilling would not impact domestic production until 2017. The real quote assumes that leases would not start to be made until 2012. If we started today we would see an actual impact by 2013 and, likely, an emotional impact resulting in reduced prices immediately.

The Dem's and the Republicans need to compromise on the energy issue with new offshore and ANWR drilling AND increased conservation and promotion of renewable resources. Focus on the mythical impace of CO2 emissions is a dangerous distraction.

Click HERE to read Krugman's opinion (not fact) piece...