So... I was wrong about Keystone XL being dead. Charles Pierce, with some additional links I embedded beyond his:
Yes, exotic dancer jobs should be counted in the economic impact study.
It'll happen like Pierce says, probably about a year from now, once 2014's election is in the books, irrespective of whether the US Senate flips or a Democrat gets elected to something statewide in Texas. But I'll let David Nangle, the top FB commenter to Pierce's article, finish.
Don't blame me; I voted for Jill Stein.
The ducks are lining up in a very pretty row regarding our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, the proposed continent-spanning death funnel that would bring the world's dirtiest fossil fuel from the environmental hellscape of northern Alberta down through the richest farmlands on the planet all the way to refineries in Texas, and thence to the world. Ed Schultz is running the bullshi...er...ball on liberal MSNBC. Progressive champion Brian Schweizer is on board; what the hell, they're not going to take his land to build it. The State Department's cheesecloth "environmental" study is being treated as dispositive, not least by former Energy Secretary Ken Salazar, and AFL-CIO president Rich Trumka's on board as well, guaranteeing that the stupid stand-off within progressive politics between organized labor and the environmental movement will go on for another decade, because we all know how helpful that has been. And just for entertainment's sake, here's Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post being baffled by the jobs numbers, which all have been fake from the beginning because TransCanada, the company that wants to build the pipeline, cannot be trusted. And the State Department's numbers, as the National Resources Defense Council makes clear, are one big ball of fudge. You simply cannot make the case for this monstrosity on the basis of economic stimulus unless you count the strippers. Are we counting strippers?
Yes, exotic dancer jobs should be counted in the economic impact study.
I think the deal has gone down. Some late Friday afternoon, the president and John Kerry are going to stick their heads out the window and whisper, "We gonna build this sucker," and then blow town. This is what will happen next. There will be massive civil disobedience all along the length of the pipeline. It will get built. TransCanada, as is its historic pattern, will then neglect to maintain it and it will leak, badly. The environmental damage will be massive and lasting. All over western Canada, which has stood firm against running this creature through its territories, people will chuckle wisely at what suckers we all were. And important pundits -- and fact checkers -- will tell us nobody could have predicted this.
It'll happen like Pierce says, probably about a year from now, once 2014's election is in the books, irrespective of whether the US Senate flips or a Democrat gets elected to something statewide in Texas. But I'll let David Nangle, the top FB commenter to Pierce's article, finish.
... and we will pay dearly in tax money for an inadequate cleanup that makes the perpetrators even wealthier, somehow. The perpetrators will pay less in taxes from their profits than I will from my job. Obama will be blamed (correctly), and socialism will be blamed (insanely.) Liberals will be blamed. The victims all along the pipeline will fiercely vote Republican in response. Cancer rates will soar along the path of death. Firebrands will stand very, very far away from each disaster and proclaim that government regulations caused the mess. Freedom will be mentioned. Rights will be mentioned. Solar power will be declared more dangerous, as will wind power. None of this is avoidable.
Don't blame me; I voted for Jill Stein.
