Totally not related
This:
Freak November Tornadoes Wreak Havoc
CHICAGO, Nov 17 (Reuters) – A fast-moving storm system triggered multiple tornadoes in Illinois and Indiana on Sunday, killing at least two people, injuring about 40 and flattening large parts of the city of Washington, Illinois as it crashed across the Midwest, officials said.
And this:
Seventeen out of twenty-two Republican members of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, or 77 percent, are climate deniers.
Tornadoes in the Midwest? About as surprising as hurricanes — of which we haven’t had any, this year — striking the Southeast, or snow in the Rockies. Oddly enough, we had tornadoes in the Midwest decades and decades ago, too. Why, it’s almost as though they existed before global warming. Heck, one was so powerful, back in 1939, that it transported a little girl — and her little dog, too! — all the way to another land.
Show your work, Dana. Go on and cite your climate scientists and their studies. I’ll wait.
I’d be especially interested in how many totally normal tornadoes have hit the Midwest in November over the past 100 years. That should be some interesting reading.
Here is something:
I understand how the Koch brothers benefit from climate change denial, but I’ll never understand what broke ass moops like Dana get out of it. The thrill of feeling like they are on a winning team? It is just odd.
Well, if y’all believe that ’twas global warming which caused the tornadoes in the Midwest, clearly a bad thing, then wouldn’t you also have to say it was global warming which kept the Southeast and East Coasts from getting hurricaned this year, which would be a good thing?
I do not claim that the climate isn’t getting slightly warmer, but I have said that I am completely unwilling to impoverish Americans to try to change it, if it even can be changed.
And when I see the High Priests of Global Warming like Al Gore taking fossil fueled private jets around the world, to speak about the dangers of carbon emissions, I see someone who really doesn’t believe what he says. That’s the problem with the warmists: they are such huge hypocrites in the ways that they live their lives that it’s impossible for me to take them seriously.
Even my good friends at the Delaware Liberal: are they not all consuming electricity, thus contributing to carbon emissions, to post about this stuff here? After all, people lived perfectly well before the internet and personal computers, so I’d guess that you (plural) could do so as well. Yet, you choose to consume more electricity, to emit more carbon dioxide, to post here. That says something that perhaps you didn’t intend to say.
So let me be sure I have this right. You don’t like Al Gore, so you discount anything he has to say ? You think the world is getting warmer, but whatever long term costs that are associated with that are not relevant to your thinking because there are short-term costs which are more relevant to you.
Do I have those two items right? Once I’m sure I know what you are trying to say I want to respond.
That says something that perhaps you didn’t intend to say.
Actually, no. We’ve been on record in all kinds of ways that we don’t have the low-carbon, low-emissions choices we should have at some scale for energy. Largely because of folks like you defending the dirty stuff and pretending that somehow Al Gore is at the root of the problem.
I think he is trying to say that if people who believe the science behind climate change don’t live lives of perfect rectitude (in his estimation) then he doesn’t need to be concerned with climate change.
I’m trying to follow his internal logic, but is is tough.
Why would there be internal logic? When what you’ve got is disinformation from Fox Noise, who needs internal logic?
Notice, also, how Dana has ignored my request for him to show his work. (Conservatives and science don’t mesh) Instead, I get Al Gore sucks!
And you wonder why Conservatives are anti-intellectual. Studying science is hard. Compiling data is hard. Put up, or shut up, Dana. And I do mean that respectfully – mainly because the man has a gift for limericks!
Mr 330 asked:
No, you don’t have it right. I’d say that the world may be getting slightly warmer, though it is still within the norms of human history, and if the climate is warming slightly it may be partially due to industrialization.
People like Al Gore? I sure wish he had grown up poor, like I did, and had been poor, as an adult, like I used to be. When I see proposed “solutions” which add large costs onto electricity producers without producing any more electricity, I see costs which are going to be reflected in people’s electric bills. For the vocal proponents of “doing something” about global warming, having to pay another $14 or whatever every month for their electric bills doesn’t mean much; for some people, that’s a couple of meals that they can’t put on the table. For the people who want to add additional costs to gasoline, to encourage conservation, it’s an annoyance, but for a whole lot of people — the same people for whom my good friends at the Delaware Liberal have expressed so much support and sympathy — having to spend more money to fill the gas tank on the car, so that they can get to work, means less money for other things for their children.
Do you think that’s short-term thinking? Well, maybe it is, but for people living from paycheck-to-paycheck, something with which I am very familiar, the short-term is the only important thing; they’ve got to get through next week before they can worry about whether the sea will rise a couple of inches or the polar bears won’t have enough hunting grounds.
Cassandra wrote:
The reason that solar and wind power don’t produce a lot more of our power supply is that they are simply unable to do so, on a reliable basis, with our current technology. I do recall some articles on this site concerning advocacy of wind power (or something like that), but the wind doesn’t always blow and the acreage required for significant wind or solar power sites is considerable.
Perhaps, someday, someone — doubtlessly a huge oil or energy company — will come up with a new method of power generation which can produce the enormous amounts of electricity we use without the drawbacks of our current technology, but that day has yet to arrive.
And, to me, if anyone is addressing the issue seriously, he has to be talking about, and support, the significant expansion of nuclear power generation. Nuclear power is the only non-polluting major energy source we have that can be significantly expanded. (Hydroelectric power isn’t polluting, but there isn’t as much room for expansion.)
The reason that solar and wind power don’t produce a lot more of our power supply is that they are simply unable to do so, on a reliable basis, with our current technology.
This is QUITE wrong. The Germans are shutting down nuclear and old coal plants in favor of renewables now.
And still no work shown… even though he italicizes the word may
Come on, Dana. Provide the links from climate scientists that prove your theories*.
*Note: Dana’s theories are not scientific theories. He’s a feel it in my bones sort of guy.
Dana, thanks for clarifying. I’m just going to set your disdain for Al Gore aside because it doesn’t make much sense and is a distraction. What I think you are getting down to is saying that you believe the scientific consensus around climate change, and the fact that it is a calamity is false. Is that accurate?
That belief is based on what exactly? Something you heard at the Senior Center, on TV or something you read?
It is clear that the demand for power (electricity) will not decrease ever. Once upon a time the industrialized nations (primarily us) were the largest consumers of electricity. That is no longer the case and large nations such as China and India are increasing demand in leaps and bounds.
Considering that electricity is used to power ever aspect of the economy and indeed our entire lives, the world (and us) require a constantly increasing supply of electrical power. The alternative is to cap our use in some manner or return to preindustrialized America. Even if that were possible, the rest of the world is not about to do the same.
Consequently, we must continue to develop more efficient power sources and power uses, while at the same time balance that development with need to preserve the environment so that living on this planet continues to be worthwhile.
The pros and cons of fossil fuel is well understand. Ditto wind and solar (as Dana pointed out, the wind doesn’t always blow and land is limited for solar). Both wind and solar are viable alternatives but they will never be able to completely meet our needs. The only real alternative is to exploit nuclear power, at least until we discover dilithium crystals or the equivalent. There is no reason we cannot exploit all these alternates in a safe and sane manner balancing our economic need with preserving the environment. The US Navy has used nuclear power vessels for over 60 years without a mishap. I am sure we could replicate that record in the civilian world if we had the will.
“Considering that electricity is used to power ever aspect of the economy and indeed our entire lives, the world (and us) require a constantly increasing supply of electrical power. ”
It does not necessarily follow. We are not growing like we did from 1950 to 1980. Our birthrates are down and (if the righting has its way) we’ll have fewer immigrants. If markets for everything else are down, why not energy?
You’d need to be a number-crunching machine to do it, but it would be interesting to examine birth rates as related to views on climate change? On a prima facia basis it makes sense that people who understand the science would have fewer babies.
Unless Republicans have their way, and then every pregnancy would result in birth… only to be labeled as “takers” once they’re born.
@D “Tornadoes in the Midwest? About as surprising as hurricanes — of which we haven’t had any, this year ”
Destructive tornadoes in November??
And no hurricanes????? And it’s been a banner year for hurricanes/typhoons… one of the WORST on record. In fact, the November typhoon to hit the Philippines this month was the strongest to EVER to hit land in recorded history.
Yeah, Liberal Elite, but don’t you know hurricanes/typhoons don’t count unless they hit the USA?
@Dave “(as Dana pointed out, the wind doesn’t always blow and land is limited for solar)”
But that really doesn’t really matter. The Europeans use excess energy to pump water uphill into a high reservoir. The energy can then be used later, as needed, as hydroelectric power.
Energy storage isn’t such a difficult problem…
@P “Yeah, Liberal Elite, but don’t you know hurricanes/typhoons don’t count unless they hit the USA?”
Yes.. but is it ignorance or dishonesty?
There is an old hurricane poem:
June too soon
July stand by
August a must
September remember
October all over
It’s November… the quiet time. It’s supposed to be all over with typhoons and tornadoes and such. These massive November hurricanes/typhoons such as Sandy and Haiyan are something our forefathers never saw.
Mr 330 wrote:
No, I have not said that global warming is definitely wrong; the climate may be warming slightly, and industrial development may be playing a part. But it hasn’t been proved, and, at least thus far, the climate changers models have not proved to be very predictive of what would happen.
There are sensible things which can be done as far as energy conservation in the future, and those things make sense, regardless of whether climate change projections are accurate or not. But going back and trying to make existing energy sources much more expensive hurts our economy as a whole and hurts Americans as individuals.
Mr Elite wrote:
Hurricane Sandy was an October event, making landfall in New Jersey on October 29, 2012.
Sandy was a very large hurricane, by diameter, but at the very bottom end of the strength scale. It was so destructive because it struck an area just not all that well prepared for hurricanes, and due to the diameter of the storm. If you visit the Outer Banks of North Carolina, you’ll see most of the east-facing houses up on stilts, because the Outer Banks are hurricane prone. In addition, the state takes much stronger protective measures concerning the dune structures; even then, highway 12 (running along the Outer Banks) has been overwashed several times, and the Oregon Inlet Bridge seriously damaged. On the New Jersey barrier islands, that was a rarity. There isn’t much that can be done when the wave action overwashes the barrier islands, but the Jersey construction was simply not up to what was needed.
Mr 330 wrote:
On the surface, that seems like a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, but who can say? However, it’s perfectly fine with me if you liberals are outbred by conservatives. 🙂
So you are basing your belief that scientific consensus on climate change may be questionable on that one article? Is that correct?
Would your views be likely to change if you found out that nothing in the article has any impact on the scientific consensus that human activities are driving dangerous levels of global warming?
Anybody see what Dana did here:
Stringing together weak admissions that the central ideas of climate change (which are no longer the argument among scientists) may have merit, with a note that the forecasting of climate change isn’t very good. What this ignores is that the current state of the science is specifically working on better modeling not just of the effects but of future effects of climate change; as well as on mitigation strategies and other tasks that will help us to manage what is coming. The fact that the predictions are all over the map doesn’t impeach the science that says that climate change is real and caused by us.
I’m curious about the weak admission. Why, when most wignuts, swallow the climate deniers talking points wholesale, does Dana reserve a little bit of independence? It is interesting.
Unlike the possibility that an unworthy black person might get welfare, I think climate change isn’t something that he has very strong feeling about. I get the feeling that if Fox News suddenly decided that human activities are driving dangerous levels of global warming, Dana would be able to turn on a dime as well.
Typhoon Tip is the largest and most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded. When did the storm develop? October 1979. The storm struck Japan on October 19, 1979.
No serious scientist would attribute a single storm’s occurrence or intensity to climate change.
Nobody here has confused weather with climate.
@Jason330:
Then why post write a single post about both this weekend’s weather and 17 Republicans’ position on climate change?
Even your post’s title suggests that anthropogenic climate change (at minimum) contributed to this weekend’s weather.
I was just watching Cecily Tynan on WPVI doing the weather (the 6:00 report, for documentation purposes), and she noted that tornadoes in November are not unusual, and that there’s usually an outbreak similar to this weekend’s every seven or eight years. Why, it’s almost as though it was part of a fairly normal pattern.
Mr 330 wrote:
I cited one article, but there have been hundreds of them; William Teach of The Pirate’s Cove does a pretty good job at pulling all of those stories together.
Scientific method begins with an hypothesis, which is then tested to see if actual results match the predictions of the theory. As far as climate change is concerned, the observed results as time passed have not matched the theory. Normally, that means that the hypothesis is flawed, but on this topic, there is too much emotion involved and too many egos out there, with what is now a vested interest in the theory being right. The current in vogue explanation is that the theory is right, but that the excess heat went into the oceans rather than the atmosphere. Is that actually the case, or is it just a political excuse? Naturally, it’ll be years before we know.
And scientists are seeing evidence of global warming on Mars; might that indicate that the sun is driving such, or is it smog out the tailpipes of the Mars rovers? 😆
I am wholly uninterested in “scientific consensus,” because the “scientific consensus” has been wrong before, on a whole host of things. I am interested in proof, and as far as the global warming theory is concerned, that hasn’t been proved yet.
By the way, I have a comment which hit the moderation queue, probably due to having three hyperlinks in it.
Mr 330 wrote:
Perhaps it’s because I recognize that a theory which has not been proved, due to the data not matching the predictions, has not necessarily been disproved. The possibility exists that the climate actually is changing slightly, but, if it is, we still do not know if it is due to man’s actions or to natural cycles. The earth’s climate was warmer several centuries ago as well, long before industrialization, which is an interesting point, but which does not disprove a theory that it is industrial activity which might be driving an current warming trend.
“Perhaps it’s because I recognize that a theory which has not been proved, due to the data not matching the predictions, ”
So that article is the whole basis for your feelings?
Davy ,
I haven’t felt the need to explain the difference between weather and climate on the blog for a couple years. I think we are all on the same page on that by now.
I like to read Jeff Masters over at Wunderground Weather for his take on events like these. He has an ability to compile the data (with links, Dana) and describe the event in a way that is not particularly biased even though he is clearly a “believer” in anthropomorphic global climate change. Even in this piece he stresses that the models are not particularly accurate, because the data is changing so quickly (and not in a good way).
There is also a whole climate change blog chock full of data over there.
Also, progress has been made. As I recall, the argument has crepted from climate not changing vs. humans changing it, to climate is changing, humans not changing it vs. reality, to humans are changing it, but it won’t be so bad vs. reality, to AGCC is reality, but nothing we do can stop it vs. reality.
Mr 330 wrote:
Consider that Dana doesn’t want a malingering white person to get welfare either. Of course, actually considering that might not coincide with your stereotypes of conservatives.
I support sensible measures aimed at reducing pollution and increasing energy efficiency, things which ought to be done regardless of whether one believes in anthropogenic climate change or not. It makes sense for me to insulate my 120 year old house, not because I’m worried about more CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere, but because it saves my family money on our utility bills, and, by consuming less fuel, it contributes to keeping the price of energy lower.
But rather than looking sensibly, you guys would take a wrecking ball to the economy. In your zeal to fight AGW, my good friends on the left have proposed policies which would drive up the prices of fossil fuels artificially, to enforce conservation by making it just plain too expensive to heat your house.
Trouble is, you have to heat the house . . . and thus, the policies of the left would wind up taking more of people’s earnings to bu fuel and electricity, and reducing what was left over for food and the telephone and maybe a luxury or two.
Remember the “cash for clunkers” program? Dreamed up by our good, liberal friends in the Obama Administration, it was a project completely egocentic in concept; the people who put it together were all successful, well-to-do professionals, who never really considered that not everybody else in the US is a successful, well-to-do professional.
So, they gave incentives which rewarded people for buying the right new cars, to improve fuel efficiency, but somehow forgot that you have to be reasonably well-off to afford a new car; the poor, the people just barely hanging on to their jobs couldn’t participate, because they couldn’t afford to participate, and it became nothing but welfare for the well-to-do.
And there was a back side to c4c as well. Those people less well off have to make do with used cars. Yet, c4c require that the less efficient cars traded in to the program be destroyed. That took some of the newer used cars that were traded in under c4c and removed them from the used car market as well, making it more difficult for the less well off to get a better, if still used, car, by reducing the supply.
It is that egocentrism on the part of the successful left which really creates problems. It’s easy to say, well, if we increase the price for fossil fuel energy, it’ll encourage conservation and people buying more energy efficient appliances and adding insulation to their homes, if you forget that there are a whole lot of paycheck-to-paycheck people who simply can’t go out and buy a more efficient refrigerator right now.
@Dana “But rather than looking sensibly, you guys would take a wrecking ball to the economy. In your zeal to fight AGW, my good friends on the left have proposed policies which would drive up the prices of fossil fuels artificially, to enforce conservation by making it just plain too expensive to heat your house.”
Looking “sensibly” is what got us to where we are. The data supporting AGW are overwhelming. Those who deny this are either dupes or artisans. The only true debate is how severe it will all be for our grandkids and their kids.
The only thing that will spur true energy independence and the decline of fossil fuels is to let the cost rise. Tax the hell out of it, and let the market find solutions. It’s not a wrecking ball, it’s a garbage truck.
Like they say in China: “What good is a robust economy if it is too polluted to live here.”
@Dana “And there was a back side to c4c as well. Those people less well off have to make do with used cars.”
It’s OK if poor people take the bus, or walk,… Fewer cars is not a bad thing.
The Liberal shows his Elitism:
That was so callously stated for someone proclaiming himself to be a liberal that I have to wonder if it was meant as sarcasm.
But the obvious truth is that not everybody, whether poor or otherwise, can take the bus or walk to work: there aren’t bus routes everywhere, buses don’t always run at the times people would need them to run, and most people don’t live within walking distance of where they work.
“Fewer cars is not a bad thing.”
Yeah, but poor people often live much further away from where they work, have fewer transportation choices and consequently are much more reliant on cars. Fewer cars owned by those less well off may be good for the environment but bad for them.
We have to be careful of the law of unintended consequences. Or to put it another way, our way of life is a system of systems (SOS) (think Gaia). Change perturbates and small changes often have unforeseen impacts. A narrow approach in dealing with change often results in forays into the wonderful world of hindsight.
Mr Elite also wrote:
Given that there are no currently available alternatives, all you are suggesting is the impoverishment of the majority.
Let’s take a look at the Chevy Dolt as an example: GM reduced the unit price for the Volt to $34,995. Buyers still get a federal tax credit, up to $7,500, for buying the fool things, so our tax dollars are subsidizing more that 20% of the purchase price. The Volt uses very little fuel — there is a gasoline engine for recharging the batteries if the charge falls too low before you get to a place you can plug the charger in — and people normally plug it in at home to recharge the vehicles.
With a 240 volt charging station at home, it takes about 4 hours to recharge the batteries. And all that time, you are feeding current into the car, current produced by a distant (coal burning?) power plant. The Volt doesn’t end pollution, but simply transfers it from the vehicle tailpipe to the power plant smoke stack!
Perhaps one day the technology will exist which will give us pollution free power generation, but that day has not arrived. “Taxing the Hell” out of current technology to try to push people to adopt newer technologies which do not exist yet simply impoverishes them.
“…to push people to adopt newer technologies which do not exist yet simply impoverishes them.”
Impoverishes? We’re one of the few countries in the world that does not tax fuel sufficiently to actually pay for the roads. Why should the people who take the subway, pay for your roads? Why should blue states pay for red states to the extent we do? Why should tax money flow to the south in Delaware?
And the technologies do exist. They simply need to be made viable.
This has happened before in England. They used to heat their houses with wood. But when they found they had cut down basically all their trees, they were in an energy bind. They passed laws to protect what few trees they had, and people like you whined and complained about prices rising…
But what happened instead? They invested in coal mines, and new canals to carry that coal, and finally railroads. It wasn’t a wrecking ball at all. It gave us the industrial age.
@Dana “But the obvious truth is that not everybody, whether poor or otherwise, can take the bus or walk to work:”
The obvious truth is that car ownership rates in the US are outside of the world norm. Even rich countries like Switzerland have about 2/3rds the number of cars per capita. Most countries? well under half.
Having the most is not a good thing. Money would be better spent in public transportation (like nearly everywhere else in the world).
@Dana “Let’s take a look at the Chevy Dolt”
I own a Nissan Leaf. It’s quiet, clean, and civilized.
It does not produce more pollution than your car, and it does not stink up the neighborhood.
It is also a heck of a lot cheaper to run. I pay $0.04 per mile driving it around. My wife’s TDI wagon costs $0.10 per mile, and I’ll bet what you’re driving costs more than $0.20 per mile. Add in the fact that I’ve got no maintenance costs (no oil changes, no brake jobs-uses regenerative, no transmission,…).
It’s a clear win. When the new i3 comes out, I’ll probably get one of those…
From The Philadelphia Inquirer:
After a year of record-high numbers….
“set a 12-month record for the fewest significant tornadoes observed in the period.”
And those few were real doozies. Moore and El Reno were two EF5s only 11 days apart. And El Reno was, by any measure, exceptional.
“El Reno, Oklahoma Tornado Believed To Be Widest Twister On Record”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/04/el-reno-oklahoma-tornado-widest_n_3385051.html
Mr Elite wrote:
There is a huge difference between the Europeans and us: our country is far more sparsely populated. The Europeans are packed in more closely in urban areas than we are, where many Americans have chosen to live in suburban or rural areas. Public transportation is a far more difficult thing once you get out of the densely populated cities. SEPTA, the Philadelphia area service, does go outside the city into the surrounding counties, with both buses and trains, but it requires continual state and local subsidies.
Up here in mostly rural Carbon County, there is no real bus service. We have a small Carbon County Regional Transport system, but it’s less of a regular route bus system and operates in a manner closer to that of a taxi. I think that you’ll find a lot of Pennsylvania is that way, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Kent and Sussex counties in Delaware don’t have comprehensive bus service either.
From a member of the so-called Party of Business:
my good friends on the left have proposed policies which would drive up the prices of fossil fuels artificially
Petroleum products — especially gasoline — are priced artificially low in the US. If oil companies did not get their government subsidies and tax credits, if they paid fair market value for oil leases, if they paid the *full* price for the environmental damage they cause, or for the effects of global warming. Every gallon of gas you pump into your car comes with other costs that you pay — certainly via the tax code and the costs the EPA pays to clean up old damages from pipelines and facilities.
What does that mean? It means that the price of gas (in particular) doesn’t reflect a market value. It reflects some partial market value plus the costs taxpayers subsidize in a hidden way. Take away the hidden costs that are picked up by taxpayers and you’ve got yourself the real cost of oil and/or gas.
Well, at last I know what made Dana the asshole he is — he grew up “poor,” the sad little dear. So now he’s a proudly selfish, proudly ignorant asshole.
God must love the self-pitying Americans — he made so many of them!
Mr Elite wrote:
😆 At least in the Philadelphia area, the subways, buses and trains are all subsidized by the state and the localities; my tax dollars are going to pay for their transportation. I believe that all of SEPTA’s costs ought to be paid for out of SEPTA’s ticket revenue.
However, I do agree with one part of what you said: highway taxes should be sufficient to pay for the roads. Of course, that means I want to find a way to tax your Nissan Leaf, because you are using the roads as well.
Again, I agree. We should pull the federal government as far out of state and local functions as possible, and cut federal taxes. That will give the states and localities the room to raise taxes to provide for the services they will have to provide.
It would be more efficient: sending money to Washington, only to have it sent back to the states for various state projects, adds unnecessary overhead costs, in the form of federal bureaucracies having to monitor state compliance with the strings attached to the money, and additional state bureaucrats having to supply the compliance paperwork to the feds.
Poor and an unstable early family life. The guy has issues. I figure if he can get his self-pity on here, in these threads – he is less likely to shoot up an elementary school.
Mr Geezer thinks he is insulting me:
Well, it was pretty simple: I escaped poverty because I worked my way out of it. And yeah, I am proud of that. Trouble is, so many of you who didn’t have to do that have both an amazing amount of sympathy for the poor and an incredible lack of understanding about them. How easy it is for you (plural) to suggest higher taxes on this or that thing, without any understanding that those taxes are going to fall on the very poor for whom you have such sympathy.
Y’all want to increase taxes on carbon based fuels? Not only will that cost everybody more in gasoline for their automobiles — except Mr Elite, I suppose — but it will raise the prices of everything you buy, because virtually every consumer good out there, food, electronics, clothing, you name it, was delivered by a diesel-powered truck. That fuel has to be paid for, and it is paid for in the cost of the items you buy. Perhaps Mr Elite or Mr 330 is well off enough that a few extra cents on a tin of caviar won’t be a problem, but when people are pinching pennies just to make it from payday to payday, those few extra cents on a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk means that something else doesn’t get purchased.
You have a weak grasp on macroeconomics.
At least in the Philadelphia area, the subways, buses and trains are all subsidized by the state and the localities; my tax dollars are going to pay for their transportation.
People in the Philadelphia area also pay state and local taxes that help pay for their own transportation projects. Much like these same residents of the Philadelphia area pay for the state roads and bridges in places they don’t live in or work in.
@Dana “my tax dollars are going to pay for their transportation.”
I doubt that very much. I’ll bet you that FAR more dollars flow into your county than all the taxes paid from your county. And thus you guys are, in fact, leaches that prey on the people who earn the real bucks in the real cities.
I own a nice 3rd house in the middle of PA (Center County), so I know first hand how much we pay versus what we get out there.
@Dana “I escaped poverty because I worked my way out of it. And yeah, I am proud of that. Trouble is, so many of you who didn’t have to do that have both an amazing amount of sympathy for the poor and an incredible lack of understanding about them.”
You’re not the only one here who had modest beginnings and climbed out of it. Don’t assume that none of us here have ever experienced hunger and want.
What I want to know is, coming from a poor background: How can you support political positions that are so damaging to the poor? Have you forgotten old friends you left behind?
OK, we all know you’re, um, not very bright, but even a moron like you — I won’t call you an ideologue because you’re not smart enough to have ideas per se — ought to be able to figure out without help that a carbon tax can replace other taxes.
The fact that you consider it a compliment is proof of your ignorance — not stupidity but willful ignorance. I suppose it plays well in areas where deer outnumber people. Also, I think you’re in the running for the Hopeless Shitheel award for your incredible sympathy for the poor. All hail Dana, King of the Shitheels!
@LE: the more important question is how much do Dana, and other working people who misidentifying with the rich, actually pay in taxes? Unless he’s misleading us about his income, “his tax dollars” spent on transportation probably amount to fewer than $10 per year. That doesn’t count his gasoline or diesel tax, but that money is dedicated only to road building and repair. And given how far from tithe rest of us he lives, we’re subsidizing him on that front, too.
It’s a give that anyone who complains of taxes either doesn’t actually know much about them, or is selectively outraged so they can impress rubes like Dana.
@Geezer “It’s a give that anyone who complains of taxes either doesn’t actually know much about them, or is selectively outraged so they can impress rubes like Dana.”
Selective outrage is the primary goal of disseminators like Fox News.
The real abominations in our tax code remain invisible to people like Dana, because Fox News is always shouting “Look over there at what they’re getting!!”.. and they’re ALWAYS pointing at poor people.
Meanwhile the 99% is getting totally screwed by tax loopholes (e.g. carried interest), corporate pork, and rent-seeking industries.
And now Europe takes a turn with an unusual November storm.
Cyclone Cleopatra sweeps Italy’s Sardinia, killing at least 17
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/11/19/21529600-cyclone-cleopatra-sweeps-italys-sardinia-killing-at-least-17
“We’re facing an exceptional event here which has put our system of territorial planning and management into crisis,” said Antonello Frau, deputy head of the island’s geological service.
Fun With Facts Time:
Delaware Ranks 51 in ratio of federal tax dollars received vs collected:
2007-2009 Federal taxes paid, avg.: $17.38 billion
2007-2009 Federal funding received, avg.: $6.95 billion
2007-2009 Amount received per tax dollar paid, avg.: $0.40
Pennsylvania ranks 32:
2007-2009 Federal taxes paid, avg.: $111.85 billion
2007-2009 Federal funding received, avg.: $125.01 billion
2007-2009 Amount received per tax dollar paid, avg.: $1.12
Carbon County, PA
2010 Federal Dollars Received $633,840,176
2010 Population 65,249
2010 Federal Dollars Per Person $9,714.17
Demographic 96.4% White
Labor Force 32,157
Mean Earnings For Workers (Male) $43,445
Mean Earnings For Workers (Female) $32,416
Avg Fed Tax on $43K (married/joint) $5,612
Avg Fed Tax on $43K (single) $6,912
It appears that the predominately white population of Carbon County is the recipient of significant federal largesse compared to the amount they pay in taxes.
That’s actually normal when for rural areas, since counties like Carbon County still have to have schools, roads, other infrastructure, nutrition, yadda, yadda. I might do run on Sussex County to see how it stacks up. The real question is, why is Delaware dead last? Shouldn’t blue states be able to make out a little better than red states like Mississippi (who tops the list at $1.71 receive for every dollar they send to DC) and Carbon County?
It is funny to think that all those white codgers in Carbon County think of themselves as rugged individualists and not the parasites on society that they are.