Clean-Coal Power Plant Set for Texas

http://www.texasobserver.org/forrestforthetrees/perry-shills-for-big-coal

"Selling carbon dioxide to oil and gas operators should boost the Penwell plant's revenues by about 50 percent. Miller says those sales will cover one-third of the revenues Summit will need to service the [debt]". So the enhanced revenues (r+.5r = 1.5r) are just enough to service the debt (3*.5r)? When does the plant start to make money?

Also, there seems to be some double-accounting here. If the capturing of the CO2 from burning the coal is counted as making the coal plant carbon-neutral, you shouldn't also count it as offsetting the emissions from burning the EOR oil.

When the farmers want a market for corn, the government spends billions to subsidize ethanol. When the oil industry wants a market for hydrogen (a byproduct of its current means to produce CO2), the government spends billions to reseach and hype the "hydrogen economy". Now, the oil industry wants to secure CO2 from coal-fired power plants and needs billions of government bucks to do that. Of course, carbon sequestration is a pipe dream like the overstated potential of ethanol or the impossible dreams of a hydrogen economy.

These government decisions are ERRORS, meaning the results will not be anything meaningful or useful. We need to stop corporate control of our government and slam the coffers shut. Energy policy should not be made based on the greed of agriculture or the oil industry or ill-fated, cost-prohibitive attempts to sequester carbon dioxide.

Dialing For Dollars

 By way of background, with their prospects for November quickly deteriorating, Congressional Democrats are scrambling to assemble the financial resources they hope can stave off their electoral Armageddon. Speaker Pelosi and her leadership team are putting a lot of pressure on Democrat members to pony up campaign contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The pressure is especially strong on members from “safe” districts, who need little campaign money of their own to win reelection. The catch, though, is that many of these members haven’t amassed vast campaign war chests, for the simple reason that they haven’t needed them. So, they are scrambling to meet their Pelosi-imposed obligations. Holmes Norton is from one such “safe” district–the District of Columbia. In the following voicemail recording, Holmes Norton seeks a campaign contribution from the lobbyist and even mentions that she hadn’t previously asked for a donation. Such is the pressure Speaker Pelosi has placed on the members. But, it is the content of Holmes Norton’s message that is interesting. Most people think contributors call the tune, but in fact the far bigger risk is on display here -- pressure on contributors from entrenched incumbents. Is the Norton case one of extortion? Not quite, but the moral hazards of that sort are clear-cut. Safe-seat incumbents (which is to say, in most years, most incumbents) know they are likely to win with or without a given contributor's dash. That's probably still true even this year, although anxieties about re-election are clearly running higher than normal. A contributor who demands a quid pro quo on anything other than a very small scale doesn't have as much leverage as most people think. By contrast, the incumbent who tells a possible contributor that "the train is leaving the station" on this or that issue (or who uses other clichés to that effect) can exert a great deal of pressure and may well get a contribution. (Challengers, obviously, can't do that...). Maybe this is a case that cries out for campaign finance reform, but I'd suggest that such reforms should focus less on clamping down on contributors than on providing resources, perhaps public as well as private, in ways that will increase competition for seats










http://texasrainmaker.com/

A Lingering Question

The authors cited no clear review of literature, however; the authors used appropriate reference in the introduction. The authors stated, “Existing literature on the impact of athletics on student performance has concentrated on individual-level analysis.” The research is shallow if because it did not state the academic performance of nonathletic students.

The authors cited “a considerable body of research indicates that student participation in extracurricular activities as athletics minimizes delinquency (Landers & Landers, 1978)” to support the positive impact of athletics on students (p. 799, introduction, para.2). This is strong evidence, however; this reference is very old, and activities of 1978 are different from those of 2004 (p. 799, introduction, para.1). The evidence “a person might be excused if, upon visiting a school, he or she concluded that the primary objective of the school system was to field an athletic team (Coleman, 1961)” is weak to support the many athletic programs in public schools (p. 799, introduction, para.1). The authors stated, “Institutionalizing athletics may signal students that
athletics are as important as or more important that academic performance” (p. 800 introduction, para.6) and no supporting evidence.

The data came from Texas school districts covering form 1997 to 1998. The authors used “Texas is well known as a state that is fanatical about athletics in general and football in particular (Bissinger, 1991; Gent, 1973; Jenkins, 1972)”, to support the choice of Texas school districts as a source of data (p. 800, data and method, para.1). The authors did not mention sampling procedure, sample size, power, precision, and research
design. Thus, it is difficult for the audience to analyze the research. Dependent variables and the independent variables were not concisely stated. The research methodology is not clear to an average audience like an athletic player. The primary audience is educational policy makers, because the authors published it in the Review of Policy Research journal.

There is some limitation of bias. In referring to subjects, the authors stated “black and Latino students” (p.802 data and method, iv. para.3). The authors capitalized Latino, but not ‘black’. According to American Psychological Association (2010, p. 75), when referring to racial and ethnic groups, use capitalized proper noun. The authors used color for the Black race, and region for Latino Race and this is not consistency. The
authors used minority without a modifier-racial or ethnic before the noun (American Psychological Association, 2010, p. 75).

The authors mentioned control variables. The dependent variables were students’ attendants, basic skills, and average SAT and ACTS scores. Independent variables include the per student athletics budget of the district, and percentage of African American and Latino students in Texas district schools. Poverty and total per student expenditures were controlled. Hypothesis 1 is the relationship between athletic expenditures and student performance, which agreed with the research topic. The authors used the T-Score to analyze the data, but not full discussion about the distributed mentioned.

The authors presented the data in table form and explained with a short narrative. The authors did not begin by relating findings back to the overall purpose of the study.

Findings

• Hypothesis 1 is positive, but not statistically significant. The authors stated that the results are most consistent with the null hypothesis, but did not go further to show the consistency.

• Athletics can influence student performance on basic exam performance. Table 2 results show a negative Texas Assessment of Academic Kills [TAAS] relationship between athletic expenditures and student performance.

• Strong negative relationship exists between athletic budgets and student performance on SAT and ACT examinations. From the article, “the athletic budgets can have a can have a maximum impact of 45 points on SAT or 1.2 points on the ACT” (p. 803, findings, para.3).

• School districts with larger athletic budgets have student bodies that are less likely to participate in college admission tests and less likely to score highly on these tests.

 In conclusion, the authors stated that existing literature shows a positive relationship between athletics and student performance, but when the analyses is moved to a district level, different results are obtained. In addition, the authors mentioned that when school district spends money on athletics, academic performance is low. Furthermore, the authors suggested that additional research merits the impact of athletic expenditures on the overall academic performance. The authors based the conclusions on logical findings. The recommendation for future studies was adequately stated. This article was well organized, but not in-depth. The sampling procedure and size were not clearly stated. Overall, the not meet the quality of a scholarly article.

http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-3566508/A-lingering-question-of-priorities.html

References

(American Psychological Association 2009 Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association)American Psychological Association (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (6th ed.). Washington, DC: Author

(Meier K J Eller W S Marchbanks Iii M P Robinson S Polinard S Wrinkle R D 2004 Lingering Question ofPriorities: athletic Budgets and Academic Performance Revisited)Meier, K. J., Eller, W. S., MarchbanksIII, M. P., Robinson, S., Polinard, S., & Wrinkle, R. D. (2004). A Lingering Question of Priorities:athletic Budgets and Academic Performance Revisited. Review of Policy Research, 21(6), 799-807. doi:10.1111/j.1541-1338.2004.00109.x