The Present Situation In Mali...and how you can help!

HATE AND REVENGE

(On the side of this blog, there is a PayPal button that lets you donate a few dollars to GCAM, Groupe Coordination Aude Mali. GCAM is a little but long time dedicated NGO group that has been working for almost 30 years with a community of Touareg tribal people in the Saharan Desert of Mali. GCAM has promoted Touareg culture and art to help this nobel ancient group keep their traditional way of life. Today, that way of life seems to be a relic of a past. The focus today is trying to help these people survive chaos and upheaval and to be able to even dream of a future....this is a message from someone who has devoted her life to this cause. Every centime helps.)

The situation in Mali might look good from the outside but is not. It is really becoming a much bigger disaster. Nature is not helping with a wind hotter than the sun!

For hundreds of years Mid-Sahara was Touareg Land. The Touareg were nomads and travelled the Sahara trading goods and black slaves. Buyers and sellers were the arabs in the same area.You will find two main old slave tracks in that area as big as Europe, one trough Tombouctou (Mali) and one trough Agadez (Niger). The French came and colonized most of the area between 1850 - 1900 and divided it in different “departements”. They forbade slavery and used the Touareg as guides in the desert. After the French left the area was divided in pieces,it is now Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Lybia. The land was handed over by new local governments who sent their armies immediately to the borders. This created the situation where the Touareg who had travelled freely in that area couldn't move across the borders ofd their traditional world any more. This created friction between authorities and the local population and in 1964, the first rebellion occurred in the Kidal area in Mali (two years after independence of Mali). This was suppressed with brutal force. Then in 1972-74 a first big draught killed many Touareg and their animals. Then in 1982-85 a second draught was even worse, did the rest. Touareg had to settle down near towns,which made it even easier to control them. As the whole area was practically unsupported with aid and development in 1990 when the confrontation with authorities escalated, especially for the young Touareg with no future in sight. In Niger and Mali one confrontation after the another took place and many people fled to Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Lybia and Algeria. Finally, in 1996 it seemed peaceful enough for many people to  to return home but in 2007 it begins again until 2009. In january 2012 a rebellion starts when many Touaregs returned to Mali, fleeing Lybia after Ghadafi's fall. Many were Touareg mercenaries who fought for Ghadafi and had loads of weapons. The Touareg group, MNLA and the arab group Ansar Dine join together to take over Azawad. The latter group is connected to other islamic groups like AQMI and MUJAO who want to install islamic law. They procalimed the independence of Azawad (northern Mali) and take over Kidal, Timbuktu and Gao. After that AQMI and MUJAO kicked out the MNLA and instituted their version of sharia law. They received support from Al Qaida who recruited fighters from across Asia and Africa ...Pakistan, Indonesia, Nigeria, Senegal etc., they are the salafists or jihadists. These group try to seize  Bamako, the capitol,  until Francois Hollande, the French president, entered the conflict. After heavily bombing France took over the whole area, but the conflict still exists. The islamists withdraw to Lybia. But, now it's Touareg groups fighting other Touareg groups or arab groups or arab militias who unite with the Malian army to chase other Touareg. And in between all this, French soldiers try to keep those parties separated. In other words, it's a big mess, utter chaos, a humanitarian disaster and AQMI is just waiting to seize the opportunity to come back again. And from the south and south-west old hate changes in revenge. Those populations don't want the Touareg back again. But what does it mean for these Touareg populations? There are hundreds of thousands. Most are now in refugee camps in Mauritania, Burkina Faso, Niger and Algeria. They only want to go home but they can't.

For us, Groupe Coordination Aude Mali, what does that mean? When in 2012 the rebellion started we had two projects with schools, one near Timbuktu and one in Boughessa (Kidal region). Both with at least four classes. They do not exist anymore. We arranged transport for about 30 families connected to the project near Timbuktu to get to Burkina Faso refugee camp Djibo. Two families had to be transported to Mauretania refugee camp M'Bera for savety reasons. All those people and thousends of others just want to go home again. Then, because these people are nomads, a few boys stayed in the desert with their cattle, of all those families! Just to survive and hoping things are getting better and to see their families back again. These boys take great risks because they are chased by all sort of enemies because they are touareg. Fortunately they know the desert better than anyone else but at this very moment they have to fight against nature as well. One of them says: “the wind is hotter than the sun!” The gras dries out within a few days, their animals (mostly goats) die and they cry for help. We send food for these boys and food for their animals. Motorised transport is blocked all over the area so with a few camals transport is done. We hope they succeed …..

Our organisation is just a small one and we really need financial support. We would thank those that donated already to us, Groupe Coordination Aude Mali, for getting us through the hell in Mali. We appreciate any more donation, please check out the PayPal donation knob. Thank you so much

(My note: This is an ongoing humanitarian and cultural disaster. The political and social problems are being made worse by the ongoing drought and incredible heat this part of Africa is experiencing now. Your donations are going to be used as efficiently as possible to provide the basic means of survival to the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the camps in Mauritania and Burkina Faso. We want to help these proud people re establish their lives and culture.,Please give something with the PayPal button!)

Came Back Haunted

I always liked Trent Reznor, but a collaboration between Reznor and David Lynch is a brain shattering 9.2 on my mental Richter  Scale. Cheezopeeza, I hope you aren't epileptic, if you are, fer chrissakes don't press the play button!

The School For Postmen

I had to post this... a scene from one of favorite movies...I've posted the entire film here before, but it has been removed from YouTube...My favorite bicyclist of all time, the intrepid Marcel in the film that test drove all the bike gags in Jour de Fete a few years earlier. Here is Jacques Tati bustin some moves!

Lance's Rancid Grapes

On the eve of the 100th Tour de France, Lance Armstrong issued a statement claiming that it was "impossible to win the race without using banned substances". I believed in Lance for years. I believed his denials and in his victory over his own personal cancer experience. He claimed to never have used banned substances and drugs in his 7 time Tour de France first place title victories. I wanted to believe him and I did for years. I even forgave him for hanging out with George Bush Jr.  He played me, he played the public and he personally contributed to the destruction of the sport of cycling.

With this statement, he has totally trashed himself so utterly that I really would like to never see him attempt to re enter the world of competitive cycling again, ever! But, Jacques Tati? Now there was cyclist!

Quasimodo

Today, after a brief sojourn yesterday, romping semi nude in the 22 degree celsius sunshine, I awoke to a cloud shrouded sky. It even rained half heartedly for a few minutes. The high today is probably going to reach 16 celsius...that's your assignment today, convert celsius to fahrenheit....okay, it not even 70 degrees and if the sun doesn't shine? What the fuck does that mean? I took the dogs out for a walk about 7:30 and came back shivering. I made coffee and inspected the vegetable garden of stunted plants, waiting for just a few nice days. Very sad...a few raspberries, though I believe I will have a bumper crop of cassis...Cassis likes shade, dampness and cool temperatures. I did have more strawberries than I have ever had...about 12 kilos! And I found almost another 2 kilos of giant girolles in the forest today.... Maybe, it will be warmer next week, the first week of July? What do I know? I have my theories, but I want my tomatoes to start pumping out those Beef Steaks! All of my melons plants are contemplating suicide! Why? Why????? Blame it on another depression, this one has been officially named, Quasimodo.....I don't know if this German website is good for North America, but here in Europe, you can "adopt a vortex". Give it a name to suit it's evil personality. With this year of Mary Shelley depressive Frankenstein inspiring weather, it appears to be one tiny way we weather victims might have the last laugh..........

This guy is absolutely brilliant. This is the world I live in and the language I speak.

The 50,000 Mega Bat Powered Bull Horn

Give this girl the 50,000 mega bat powered bull horn she needs to be heard croaking from the highest pulpit the FOX NEWS can give her. Phyliss, honey, don't let the liberal media suppress your voice! You gotta crank up the volume, Get your message of love, acceptance and conservative compassion out there. This is the energy, the message, the out reach that the Republican party is gonna need to stay #1! Tell it like it is , BatBabe!

AWESOME!

goddam the frikin simpsons....

Psst, Wanna Buy A Duck?

The weather finally has begun to resemble summer here. Last night, it was perfect enough to eat outside and we had some friends over for a little barbecue. I did my speciality, grilled magret de canard. I actually cooked 3 of them. Each magret is one side of the breast of a barbary duck. Barbary ducks are the size of geese and are raised commercially here for foie gras, pate, confit de canard and then of course, just good duck meat. The meat of the duck breast is red, and quite like beef. I happen to like it more than steak. It has a layer of fat, which I score before I put it on the grill. Then it's a matter of touch as you want to keep it on the rare side. For me, duck fat is an essential ingredient of my health regime! Ducks are aquatic birds and the fat is totally different than chicken or say pork fat. It's an omega-3 fat and actually cuts cholesterol. Here in the Sud-Ouest, traditionally it is used as a cooking fat. It is no coincidence that this area has one of the lowest heart disease rates in the Western World. Only some of the Agean Islands off of Greece have a better profile, plus, duck fat is delicious!
So the grilled duck breast is sliced thin and served either plain or, I put out 2 condiments last night. A pot of our home made fig hazelnut confiture and our home made confit d'oignon...a sort of onion spread..made with a little sugar. Another classic accompaniment to duck and foie gras.
We always have duck fat here....either from cans of confit de canard or jars and blocks bought in the markets here. The classic accompaniment to a meal like this is a big batch of sauteed potatoes, done in an iron pot in duck fat with parsley and garlic added at the end, But, last night, I had another special ingredient...We did a batch of pomme de terre sautee aux girolles! You cook the girolle (chantrelle) mushrooms separately and add them also at the last minute! I got the girolles from our forest just yesterday morning...I have been getting up early for the last 2 weeks and collecting them each morning...they freeze well. Here's a picture of them before my wife put them in the potatoes last night!

I actually have a few posts I am working on, but, I have had to take some time
off from blogging for any number of reasons. Back very shortly with a vengeance!

The Big Town Playboys

Hard to believe, Jeff Beck is 69 today...

Happy Birthday, Mr. Beck!

Mickey Mouse In Vietnam

Created in 1968, Mickey Mouse in Vietnam is a 16mm underground anti-war short movie produced by Lee Savage (who also directed) and Milton Glaser. The one-minute unofficial Mickey Mouse cartoon features the iconic character being shipped to Vietnam. Moments after arriving, he is shot dead.
The film was thought to be lost for many years until April 22, 2013, when it was uploaded to YouTube. The video has created quite a buzz, quickly popping up on various websites, like Reddit and Vimeo.
The co-creator of the video, Milton Glaser is among one of the most celebrated graphic designers in the United States, best known for his iconic I ♥ NY logo. Some of his other well known work includes the 1966 Bob Dylan poster and the DC bullet logo (used by DC Comics from 1977 to 2005). He also founded New York magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.
Glaser has had the distinction of solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art and the Georges Pompidou Center.
In 2009, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.
Here is a recent interview with Glaser:
Did you know the video had gone viral?

Milton Glaser: No — I did it so long ago.
Are you at all surprised that it has all of sudden gone viral in the last couple of days?
MG: Well, it’s interesting that it suddenly reappeared, but I suspect there is some resonance about our involvement in the Vietnam War and our current involvement in the Middle East. It seems that there is a sort of meeting point between those two moments in history.
What is the story behind the creation of the film?
MG: It was for a thing called The Angry Arts Festival, which was a kind of protest event, inviting artists to produce something to represent their concerns about the war in Vietnam and a desire to end it.
How did you get involved with, the director, Lee Savage in making this short?
MG: Lee Savage was a good friend of mine, and he was in the film business of one kind or another, doing small production films — and with a little experience in animation, and all the things you have to know to produce a modest film the way we did.
What was the audience’s reaction when it was screened at the festival?
MG: It was very moving — people responded strongly to it. But within the context of many such events and many presentations, it didn’t quite have the power that you experience when you are seeing it in isolation. But it was moving.
You know, I was just talking about it this morning, because I have not seen it many, many years. It just shows you the power of symbolism, because in some ways it’s much more powerful than seeing a photograph of dead GIs in a landscape — something about the destruction about a deeply held myth

that moves you in way that is unexpected.
Speaking of symbolism, is that why you picked Mickey Mouse in particular?
MG: Well, obviously Mickey Mouse is a symbol of innocence, and of America, and of success, and of idealism — and to have him killed, as a solider is such a contradiction of your expectations. And when you’re dealing with communication, when you contradict expectations, you get a result.
Disney is very protective of their intellectual property. Did you ever hear from them after you screened the film?
MG: No… There was some talk about Disney suing us, but I think the consequence of that — everybody realized — would have been negative for Disney and would have no benefit. And obviously no profit was made out of the utilization of the character or the film, so nothing ever happened.
Is there any truth to the rumor that Disney tried to destroy every copy?
MG: I never heard that before or knew about it until you just mentioned it.
Did you continue to show the film after the Vietnam War ended?
MG: Lee died a year or two after that, but our intent was to do it expressly for this one event, and that was the end of it. I mean, we both went on, obviously to other ideas and other things. We certainly continued an ideological resistance to war, but we never followed it around or tried to promote or did anything once it was finished.
Lastly, had you had a platform like YouTube back in ‘60s, a way to make the film go viral, would you have gone that route?
MG: Well, that’s what you hope for, isn’t it? You hope in doing these things that they become visible and public, and up until now there was not a very effective mechanism for that type of occurrence. Now, of course, something hits at an unusual combination of circumstances — something is all of sudden seen around the world in days — and it’s always surprising.

The Loved One

Here is a clip from the movie my wife and I will enjoy this evening. The Loved One from 1965, from the book by Evelyn Waugh, screen play by Terry Southern and an incredible cast.

Jonathan Winters, Rod Steiger, Milton Berle and Liberace.... It's posted in entirety on You Tube in 9 parts...I saw it back then...I had to sneak into a theater because I wasn't 18....I was just 14, but then I bought the book....

Fete de la Musique

Today, June 21, is the Fete de la Musique here in France.

 There is musique everywhere, in every village and I would like to share some with you. Here is a complete concert by one of Frances greatest pop artists, Mathieu Chedid or as the artist formerly known as M. This guy just gets better and better. This concert is a few years old, but he is so beyond this already....Here is a clip of Mathieu performing Baia, earlier this year...

Gandolfini

I don't think I ever used this blog to eulogize an actor before, but I have to say something about the premature departure of James Gandolfini at the all too early age of 51. There is a nice piece about him and the man he was in The Atlantic. My connection? I worked with him for a period of years from the mid 80's in to the 90's. The first time I met him was when he was in Goodfellas with Robert DeNiro. I was employed as an all purpose employee of the little company, Temptu Marketing  in lower Manhattan...we had a loft on Hudson Street in the ancient red brick Wells Fargo building across from the exit of the Holland Tunnel in Tribeca. We did all sorts of things, but we had originated a technique of temporary tattoo make up. The first commercial application in movies was the Scorcese film, After Hours. Bobby DeNiro lived on the next block on Greenwich, so I started to work with him. I was among other things, the graphic designer for the little company. So I would ride my bike to work and unlock the office in the morning to find DeNiro and his make up artist, Ilona Hermann parked out in front of the building in an an ancient station wagon waiting to pounce on me screaming with her Hungarian accent, "The Jesus is all wrong. The Jesus is backwards!" Frankly, the first time this happened, I had no idea who they were...it was before 9 am fer kissakes! I dropped my coffee on the sidewalk trying to escape these crazy people...I had a great relationship with DeNiro, I did all the design work for his skin in Cape Fear...but Gandolfini was an ongoing relationship. We actually became friends of sorts. He was a truly real guy. I would go to a bar with him and we'd drink a few beers and I'd do sketches based on the ideas he had for his current project. I designed with his encouragement, some of the most god awful tattoos any one ever saw and figured out how to apply them so they would look like they had been on his skin for 25 years. After the company became a little more successful, we were able to have a second space out in Long Island City that we used as a sort of manufacturing facility and print shop.  It was only 2 blocks from the Silvercup Studios where the interiors for the series, The Sopranos was shot. So, we were like a fast food special delivery makeup supply shop. I ended up biking over to the studio with the special order tattoo makeup only hours after we conceived,designed and printed it, then getting to do the application and hang out and watch the scene being shot. After I left the company and continued to work as a free lance consultant, James Gandofini would always ask to have me in on the project. The last time I saw him was totally by chance. I was with my wife in Sarlat, France and wandering around on the streets and suddenly we were both staring at each other in disbelief saying, "Hey, whatta you doin here?"

Istanbul, 2013

Liberty Leading The People
Eugene Delacroix 1830

Dreams That Money Can Buy

A brilliant surrealist film made in 1947 by the artist Hans Richter..The protagonist discovers he can sell dreams and sets up a business. The dream sequences are written and directed by other artists including Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp. Fernand Leger, Alexander Calder, Man Ray and of course, Hans Richter. I saw this originally in Detroit in 1967 and have been looking for it on line for years...all of the sequences are amazing, but I have to watch and rewatch the Desire sequence by Max Ernst!

I have to thank my buddy Graham Dawson for this one!

More Kinky Konservative Porn

Once I alert the Texas Republicans to the clear and imminent danger of the implications of the suggestive "motions" of these cleverly disguised mechanical devices, they are going to ban them as well. K'mon. let's all try the "Compound Train"...Oh Baby, I want to "Go Round The Corner" Drive with you and your momma! Check out my massive "Worm Gear"...Oh Yeahhh, but be careful with those toothed wheels, if you know what I mean!

Ultra Sound Kiddie Porn

This is so perverse on so many levels. Yesterday, July 17th,Texas Republican Congressional Representative, Dr. Michael Burgess tries to fuel the hysteria promoting the basest of the conservative base pandering anti abortion legislation buy taking the concept of child porn to a whole new unthinkable level. The mind reels with the possible directions that the insane conservative christians might take this little nauseous nugget of disinformative propaganda. I won't even go there except I think this says a lot more about Dr. Burgess than you would ever want to know. He probably already has an entire series of "Fetuses Gone Wild" DVDs ready to market.
Maybe the GOP doesn't like Women, Gays or Immigrants, but Dr. Burgess proves they are real fans of imaginary fetal child porn masturbation fantasies!  Oh, babe, you bet your bippy...look that up in your Funk and Wagnells!

The Republican War on Women has entered a new stage as it becomes a War against Reality!

You Blinked

Given, The Waterfall, The Illuminating Gas.....

Étant donnés by Marcel Duchamp, 1946-66. Mixed media assemblage: (exterior) wooden door, iron nails, bricks, and stucco; (interior) bricks, velvet, wood, parchment over an armature of lead, steel, brass, synthetic putties and adhesives, aluminum sheet, welded steel-wire screen, and wood; Peg-Board, hair, oil paint, plastic, steel binder clips, plastic clothespins, twigs, leaves, glass, plywood, brass piano hinge, nails, screws, cotton, collotype prints, acrylic varnish, chalk, graphite, paper, cardboard, tape, pen ink, electric light fixtures, gas lamp (Bec Auer type), foam rubber, cork, electric motor, cookie tin, and linoleum. 95 ½ x 70 x 49 inches. The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA.

From the Philiadelphia Museum of Art’s website:
No photograph can communicate the intensity of the unique visual experience of seeing Marcel Duchamp’s Étant donnés: 1. La chute d’eau, 2. Le gaz d’éclairage (Given: 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas), which the artist constructed in total secrecy over a twenty-year period, from 1946 to 1966. The unsuspecting viewer encounters a spectacular sight: a realistically constructed simulacrum of a naked woman lying spread-eagle on a bed of dead twigs and fallen leaves. In her left hand, this life-size mannequin holds aloft an old-fashioned illuminated gas lamp of the Bec Auer type, while behind her, in the far distance, a lush wooded landscape rises toward the horizon. This brightly illuminated backdrop consists of a retouched collotype collage of a hilly landscape with a dense cluster of trees outlined against a hazy turquoise sky, replete with fluffy cotton clouds. The only movement in the otherwise eerily still grotto is a sparkling waterfall, powered by an unseen motor, which pours into a mist-laden lake on the right.  As Surrealism recast itself in the 1940s in reaction to the rise of fascism and the carnage of World War II, its protagonists increasingly turned to an interior world, such as the one seen behind the massive Spanish wooden door in Étant donnés, which separates the viewer from an unexpected and unimaginable landscape, visible only by looking through the peepholes. It is only in the last 15 years that photos were allowed to be taken of this piece. Duchamp constructed it in secret in a hotel room in New York, He publicly stated that he had given up art. After he died, the existence was revealed in his will along with the keys to the hotel room and the instructions for the assemblage which were in a safety deposit box in a NYC Bank. The piece was given to the Philadelphia Museum of Art under the condition that no photographs were to be allowed for 20 years after it's installation. The only access was through the crack in the massive wooded door he specified.

The Effects Of LSD

Stare at the center of this GIF for 45 seconds,

the look around your room. And, hey, babe,

it's on the house, the first one is free!

The History Of A Dangerous Idea

I really recommend this video by Mark Blyth, the Scottish Economist who really dissects the myth of austerity in a real historical context in language we can all understand, and he's quite entertaining at the same time. This is rather brilliant!.

Governments today in both Europe and the United States have succeeded in casting government spending as reckless wastefulness that has made the economy worse. In contrast, they have advanced a policy of draconian budget cuts--austerity--to solve the financial crisis. We are told that we have all lived beyond our means and now need to tighten our belts. This view conveniently forgets where all that debt came from. Not from an orgy of government spending, but as the direct result of bailing out, recapitalizing, and adding liquidity to the broken banking system. Through these actions private debt was rechristened as government debt while those responsible for generating it walked away scot free, placing the blame on the state, and the burden on the taxpayer. 

That burden now takes the form of a global turn to austerity, the policy of reducing domestic wages and prices to restore competitiveness and balance the budget. The problem, according to political economist Mark Blyth, is that austerity is a very dangerous idea. First of all, it doesn't work. As the past four years and countless historical examples from the last 100 years show, while it makes sense for any one state to try and cut its way to growth, it simply cannot work when all states try it simultaneously: all we do is shrink the economy. In the worst case, austerity policies worsened the Great Depression and created the conditions for seizures of power by the forces responsible for the Second World War: the Nazis and the Japanese military establishment. As Blyth amply demonstrates, the arguments for austerity are tenuous and the evidence thin. Rather than expanding growth and opportunity, the repeated revival of this dead economic idea has almost always led to low growth along with increases in wealth and income inequality. Austerity demolishes the conventional wisdom, marshaling an army of facts to demand that we recognize austerity for what it is, and what it costs us.

Your Saturday Evening Hallucinatory Experience. This is General Dome by the Brooklyn based duo, Buke and Gase who are Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez.  They compose and perform music with their home made instruments...The Gase is a sort of hybrid guitar/bass, the Buke is a sort of baritone uklele.

Their videos are as fascinating as the music. Check them out at their official website.

Despotism

This is a short educational film made in 1946 by the Encyclopedia Britainica. Obviously, no one watched it or if they did, they didn't pay attention. Now, pay attention! There will be a test!

Loan? What Loan?

The prestige bling mobile of 2014 is going to be the Tesla/Mercedes hybrid. 

The Tesla Motor Company announced that in 2014, the company will have a network of charging installations across the USA that will allow a Tesla owner to drive from Los Angeles to New York City. The electric vehicle has a present range of 265 miles on a single charge. The Tesla charging systems are solar powered and the idea is that they will feed the excess energy they continuously generate into the energy grid. This is the company that Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan all tried to hang as an albatross around the neck of the Obama administration in their attempt to destroy the idea of renewable energy cars and technology. They and Fox News continuously harped on the $456,000,000 loan the government gave to Tesla. Guess what? Tesla announced today that they repaid the loan in full 9 years ahead of schedule!
It turns out that if you give a bunch of intelligent innovators the seed money to conduct innovative research, the innovators will sometimes successfully innovate.
Tesla is riding a meteoric rise in stock value. Company shares have more than tripled in price since the first of the year, gaining 14% on Tuesday alone to close at $110.33. CEO Elon Musk (also the owner of SpaceX, a private space transport company) has used profits from the surge to pay off the U.S. Energy Department’s loan, in part by buying $100 million of the stock himself.
Tesla’s first available sedan is the Model S, a sleek all-electric vehicle capable of going 265 miles on a single charge, the greatest range of any electric car on the market. It has a base price of $69,000 and the first run of 21,000 units sold out almost immediately.
Despite Tesla’s success, some Republicans seem intent on focusing on the federal government’s less profitable investments. “When they’re picking all these losers, it’s nice for them to have one where they can point to,” Representative Jim Jordan said.
Essentially, then, the Republican argument against clean-energy loan programs is: ‘If any of the investments fail, then the entire program is a failure. But the success of alternate technology truly terrifies these guys. It's not the technology, it's their precious carbon based energy empire.Their house of cards is falling down. If the energy oil companies are suffering, how are their lobbyists gonna be able to keep paying off the crooked politicians and keeping them living the posh life style they have gotten accustomed to? How are they going to keep up appearances?
I posted a mash up from Media Matters showing how Fox has done a 180 degree turn in their reportage about Tesla. They started echoing the Republican criticism of the loan and predicted the failure of the company and now are crowing about the success of American innovation and seem to have even forgotten that there was even a loan in the first place. Loan? What loan?