No. First you buy the coal stocks and then, after the stock price runs up from the artificial demand created by this goofy scheme to buy out all of coal companies, you sell the coal stocks and then buy natural gas stocks. The coal stocks will go up as soon as the scheme starts buying. Natural gas stocks won't go up that much until the scheme actually starts limiting the coal supply.

My bet is that there are enough unexploited coal deposits that this scheme will mainly result in a bunch of coal mining start ups and will never seriously impact the supply of coal. Same thing happened when Standard Oil tried to create an oil monopoly back in the 19th century. Lots of people got rich starting and selling oil companies.

Cheers,
Dave

There is no such thing as economic security. I recognize that and work for a society that lets me keep what I earn.

Your idea of economic security comes at my expense with me at the wrong end of the tax collector's gun. All of the mass murders of the 20th century (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.) promised economic security if only their subjects gave them enough power and relinquished their real liberty. You know. The old, "From each according to his abilities to each according to his needs." If those are your idea of "civilized standards", I'll pass.

Cheers,
Dave

No, Thatcher and Reagan got it the most wrong of all. Not as wrong as Mao, but incredibly wrong by liberal standards.

Fixed that for you. You seem to assume that your liberal leanings are Western standards. Not.

Cheers,
Dave

And how many "modern" coal fired plants are being built? Not many due to pollution limits. On the other hand, there are lots of old coal fired plants that were located close to population centers. I usually pass a couple of coal trains each day hauling Wyoming coal down to Colorado Springs (where I work) and points south like Pueblo and on into New Mexico. Quite a few only make it as far as Denver. Not many power plants up near the mines in Wyoming (also not many people).

Another funny thing about that. Recently had a local political flap about plans to build some new high tension transmission lines where there hadn't been any before. You should have heard the outcry against building "ugly power lines". Nobody seems to notice a couple more coal trains on the same tracks though.

Other point... That's "several million new tons of domestic coal". You apparently missed the "new". Can't find a number for how much domestic coal they haul but they ship about 30 to 35 million tons a year for export. Just one railroad.

Cheers,
Dave

Liberals hate conservatives but they REALLY hate conservatives like Thatcher and Reagan who got it right. Conservatives like Bush Jr. and Palin are easy targets and ad hominem attacks that discredit the person rather than the ideas. Thatcher and Reagan put their ideas into operation and both countries benefited. That's what really pisses off the liberals. They'd rather have the country going down a rat hole the way GB was under Labour governments than admit a conservative like Thatcher was right.

Cheers,
Dave

Bzzzzzzzzttttttttt Wrong.

From a CSX press release today (13 March 2014):

"The company said the reduced operations will be partly offset by higher demand for coal to warm homes and businesses, as it carried "several million new tons of domestic coal" during the quarter."

Other railroads such as Norfolk Southern, Union Pacific and BNSF have all said about the same thing. There is an engineering tradeoff between transportation costs of coal (surprisingly cheap) and transmission losses. The solution seems to be to ship the coal to someplace relatively close to where the power will be needed.

Cheers,
Dave

If this starts getting any traction, I need to start buying coal company stocks. You and some others get to feel good. I get rich. Win-win.

Cheers,
Dave

I was looking for the,"Bothers everyone around me as I snore loudly during work hours until my body adjusts to the change" poll option. I settled for, "Bothers everyone around me as I rant and fume."

Cheers,
Dave

So, suggest an alternative. The requirements are:

1) Easy to remember.
2) Not a word that is in a password compendium like rainbow tables so no dictionary words or simple upper/lower case permutations or simple substitutions of numbers and punctuation for letters.
3) Meets recognized strong password criteria (mix of upper and lower case, numbers and punctuation and symbols) and at least 10 characters long.
4) Not based on something easily obtained socially.

and add your requirements/critique even though they contradict #3. Have at it.

Cheers,
Dave

So, suggest a better method. The requirements are:

1) Easy to remember.
2) Not based on a password already in rainbow tables (e.g., dictionary words with all permutations of upper and lower case; simple substitution of letters, numbers or punctuation for letters; etc.)
3) Not easily guessed from social information.
4) Typical strong password requirements like must contain both upper and lower case letters, numbers and punctuation (I go though this every 90 days where I work for each password system I have to deal with).

and add your requirements/critique which contradicts #4. Have at it...

Cheers,
Dave

In addition to just listing their password requirements, sites could provide a link or bubble help to a method of creating a "good" password. I like:

1) Pick a short phrase (e.g., "See Spot run.") but that connects to the site to provide some mneumonic value (so "See Spot hurl." might be for your vet).
2) Do some simple letter to number, symbol or punctuation substitutions (e.g., "S33 Sp0+ hurl.").
3) If you wish, squish out the blanks between words (e.g., S33Sp0+hurl.).

So we now have an easy to remember, eleven character password that includes upper and lower case letters, numbers, a symbol and punctuation.

Cheers,
Dave

Sounds easier to do than me getting up an hour earlier.

Cheers,
Dave

I hate daylight savings time but it would be a little easier to take if we just switched to DST and left it alone. No more twice yearly mess with both the wall clocks and our body's clock.

Cheers,
Dave

Actually, there are more fatal traffic accidents for the next several weeks after the switch to daylight savings time. Basically you get sleepy pedestrians and stressed, running late, sleepy drivers both navigating the roads during darkness and at the same time with the expected result of more pedestrians being hit. In car-pedestrian interactions of this sort, it's usually fatal to the pedestrian.

Cheers,
Dave

My perl looks like my C that looks like my FORTRAN.

Cheers
Dave