Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

We will not go back.

Roe is not about choice. It is about freedom.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

That meeting sounds like a shotgun wedding between a shitshow and a clusterfuck.

the 10% who apparently lack object permanence

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Reality always gets a vote in the end.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

You are here: Home / Economics / Free Markets Solve Everything / Shit Happens in the Free Market

Reader Interactions

69Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    I don’t know if you were aware that the Cruise flick “Jack Reacher” is set in the Steel City?

  5. 5.

    RepubAnon

    Funny how the folks advocating job-killing austerity claim that they are motivated by concerns for the supposed effect of government debt on future generations, yet are completely oblivious of the very real threat that global warming poses to future generations. It’s almost as though they actually care about nothing but their own short-term profits, and their claims of concerns for “the children” are cynical attempts to manipulate the gullible.

  6. 6.

    GxB

    Move along, nothing to see here, CO2 level at 400 whutnow? None of our concern – there’s profit to be leveraged. Had you stated “For the sake of fuck.” then we’d have a controversy.

  9. 9.

    scav

    O beautiful for spacious skies,
    For patent’d waves of grain,
    For coal black mountain majesties
    Above the free-market pain!

  10. 10.

    raven

    @efgoldman: You have asked about my Newport tour. I’m glad you mentioned it because I really enjoyed it. The helicopter rides did not take singles or I would have done that.

  12. 12.

    raven

    @efgoldman: I just drove around and then parked at the end and did the Cliff Walk. Then I went to the Battleship and the Whaling Museum in New Bedford.

  13. 13.

    Poopyman

    Coke is essentially coal with impurities baked out of it, nothing to do with petroleum waste. So this is not coke. Something a lot worse, actually.

  14. 14.

    Gin & Tonic

    @raven: Haven’t been there yet this spring, but didn’t a big chunk of the Cliff Walk get washed away during Sandy?

  16. 16.

    gbear

    I (don’t) like how they refer to this shit in a ‘one man’s trash is another man’s treasure’ way -sending the shit somewhere else to burn it and poison the atmosphere as if it’s someone else’s issue. They don’t care what they destroy any more.

    With everything I’ve seen about the explosion of this dirty dirty mining in Canada & the US, I believe that we’re on the verge of wrecking everything within my own lifetime, and I’m about to turn 59. There’s been so much visible change within the last 5 years, I don’t see how we pull out of this spiral any more.

  18. 18.

    raven

    @Gin & Tonic: Beats me, never been there before. It was raining and I went about a half a mile I think. I did get my thank you certificate from the State of Rhode Island in the mail today. Very nice.

  19. 19.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Poopyman: There’s also petroleum coke. Remember hearing about it from the guys down at the refinery back when I was satan’s minion.

  21. 21.

    Warren Terra

    Every time you think you’ve heard the bad news about the tar sands, they come up with something worse. So, oil extraction from the tar sands yields a byproduct of mountains of low-quality, sulfur-and-other-contaminants rich carbon slurry, to be piled up in our cities and then shipped off to be burned in unregulated plants in China and Mexico? No possible downside!

    At least all three Koch brothers get to extract the profits while the rest of us deal with the unpriced externalities.

  23. 23.

    Poopyman

    @efgoldman:

    Probably needs a new name, not assigned to it by petro industry PR people.

    The article calls it “petcoke” in a couple of places. Makes it sound downright cuddly.

    I suggest “oil poop”.

  24. 24.

    Gin & Tonic

    @raven: Well it’s way more than half a mile. You must have started at the north end, by Easton’s Beach, as that’s less exposed. I’d bet the south end is in pretty bad shape.

  25. 25.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Poopyman: The context where I heard it used was in a cogeneration facility next to the refinery that produced the power for the refinery. They were quite proud of it. Being that this is LA the air quality constraints are pretty tight.

    I believe that coal coke is used in steel production.

  28. 28.

    Poopyman

    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    I believe that coal coke is used in steel production.

    Yes. The difference in the two is that coal coke is the product of coking and petroleum coke is the waste.

    Full disclosure: I grew up in the 60s and 70s downwind from the Clairton Coke Works, so I know what coal coking is like.

  30. 30.

    Lurking Canadian

    @SatanicPanic: We could write it ourselves. “Given the poverty of Detroit it is only appropriate for them to accept high levels of sulfur and other poisons in their air and water. They have simply chosen to evaluate the risk of horrible deformation of their children differently than we have, and it would be the worst of cultural imperialism to impose our notions of ‘the right number of eyes, nostrils and toes'”

  34. 34.

    burnspbesq

    @Anya:

    Why is this not illegal? Where’s EPA?

    EPA did its job a while ago. You can’t get a permit to burn that crap in the United States. Many other countries have less well developed environmental laws and a need for cheap fuel, so it’s a valuable export commodity.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    Read this article earlier, via Atrios.
    Seemed about right.
    We’re gonna dump our voracious waste consumption across sites that either can’t, or won’t, protect themselves.
    Detroit is a harbinger. Gulf Coast states are next.

  37. 37.

    Corner Stone

    @burnspbesq:

    You can’t get a permit to burn that crap in the United States. Many other countries have less well developed environmental laws and a need for cheap fuel, so it’s a valuable export commodity.

    It’s not actually valuable. It’s a waste(squared) product. That then causes more damage when used in 3rd world countries.
    That’s not value. Counselor.

  38. 38.

    mainmati

    The Koch Brothers are the very personification of Evil. And they enjoy their power over us (because we let them – i.e. America as a whole). I work in the environment field and it is discouraging that largely the same political split is also reflected in environmental protection, health and safety attitudes not to mention climate change – it’s a blue-red split. And, of course, because of primitive ideology, deliberate ignorance and cynicism. To be clear, I talking about aggregates – there are excellent environmentalists in Texas, for example.

  40. 40.

    burnspbesq

    @Lurking Canadian:

    Put that pile by the ferry terminal in Victoria, and then maybe some Canadians for whom Alberta is out of sight, out of mind would wake the fuck up.

  41. 41.

    Chris

    @efgoldman:

    This.

    I’ve never been rich so I can’t say this for sure, but I imagine that at that level, when you’ve never wanted for anything, you just can’t imagine that ever changing. No matter what the problem facing the nation – you’ll be okay. Why shouldn’t you be? You always have been before.

  42. 42.

    burnspbesq

    @Corner Stone:

    It’s not actually valuable. It’s a waste(squared) product. That then causes more damage when used in 3rd world countries.

    Tell that to the people who are buying it and burning it. It sure as shit has value to them.

  43. 43.

    Citizen_X

    The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.

    These fucking guys. Is there anything they’re involved in that’s not evil?

  44. 44.

    Corner Stone

    @burnspbesq:

    It sure as shit has value to them.

    No, it has a *cost* to them. That doesn’t assign value. Just a price.
    Asshole.

  45. 45.

    Cacti

    @Corner Stone:

    No, it has a *cost* to them. That doesn’t assign value. Just a price.
    Asshole.

    The first time burnsie read “A Modest Proposal,” he thought it was a capital example of can-do, outside the box, 19th century thinking.

  46. 46.

    mouse tolliver

    Our failed media experiment was all over those GOP-doctored emails. But this — a real scandal? Meh. This is the kind of story most of them will ignore.

  47. 47.

    sophronia

    One of the world’s largest dealers of petroleum coke is the Oxbow Corporation, which sells about 11 million tons of fuel-grade coke a year. It is owned by William I. Koch, a brother of David and Charles.

    Good grief, how many of these Koch people are there?

  48. 48.

    mouse tolliver

    @Citizen_X: At this point the Koch brothers are basically just Captain Planet villains. They even have a punny name like a Captain Planet villain.

  52. 52.

    becca

    Here I am, a WASPy white middle-aged grandmother living in the mid south, and the fucking Kochsuckers make even me want to go all Che on their shriveled asses.

  55. 55.

    burnspbesq

    @Cacti:

    The first time burnsie read “A Modest Proposal,” he thought it was a capital example of can-do, outside the box, 19th century thinking.

    Oddly enough, it’s somewhat difficult for a book written in 1729 to be an example of 19th century anything.

    Do try harder next time.

  56. 56.

    burnspbesq

    @Corner Stone:

    Learn the difference and we’ll continue.

    There is no difference. Intrinsic value is a myth. You can decide what things are worth to you, but you don’t get to make that decision for anyone else.

  57. 57.

    Corner Stone

    It’s increasingly funny to me that you use the words “value” and “worth” here to dispute my contention.

  58. 58.

    AndoChronic

    “Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain”. Need the article say more on the reason? Fight the mother fucking power; double thumb fist holding a peyote button firing an AK with the other while saying that. Bring it on bitches!

  60. 60.

    Odie Hugh Manatee

    @scav:

    Oh beautiful, for smoggy skies,
    insecticided grain.
    For stripmined mountains majesty,
    above the asphalt plain.
     
    America, America,
    man sheds his waste on thee.
    And hides the pines, with billboard signs,
    from sea to oily sea.
                        G. Carlin

    Too bad he isn’t around to update it.

  61. 61.

    Chuck Butcher

    well I guess we’ve got the best government they could buy, it seems if we want a better version we’re gonna have to pony up some serious ducats. The problem, of course. is that there are levels of stupidity that no amount of money will buy people out of.

    On second thought, I think I’ll hang onto mine for a more useful purpose – like building a fire on my living room floor to roast weenies. Cynical much? I could point out that a S Carolina CD elected Mark ferfuckssake Sanford and we’ve all noticed the proposals to tax all income over $1M at 70% come out of any elected officials mouth.

  63. 63.

    different-church-lady

    Silver lining: Americans start to get a first-hand look at how awful the tar sands process is.

  64. 64.

    Just One More Canuck

    @raven: That’s very cool – I’d like to see my daughter’s school do something like that

  65. 65.

    Todd

    @mainmati:

    The Koch Brothers are the very personification of Evil

    Short of a revolutionary tribunal ordering the machine-gunning of the entire extended Koch family and courtiers so that none of them are left, I see no solution.

  66. 66.

    Todd

    @mainmati:

    The Koch Brothers are the very personification of Evil

    Short of a revolutionary tribunal ordering the machine-gunning of the entire extended Koch family and courtiers so that none of them are left, I see no solution.

  67. 67.

    Todd

    @mainmati:

    The Koch Brothers are the very personification of Evil

    Short of a revolutionary tribunal ordering the machine-gunning of the entire extended Koch family and courtiers so that none of them are left, I see no solution.

  68. 68.

    Mart

    Realize dead thread but trying to get folks to Google Engridge + projects. There are thousands of miles of tar sand pipeline being built right now while everyone is focused on Keystone.

Comments are closed.