World's Largest Solar Plant, With Second Largest Ever Department of Energy Loan Guarantee, Files For Bankruptcy

World's Largest Solar Plant, With Second Largest Ever Department of Energy Loan Guarantee, Files For Bankruptcy.(ZH).Solyndra was just the appetizer. Earlier today, in what will come as a surprise only to members of the administration, the company which proudly held the rights to the world's largest solar power project, the hilariously named Solar Trust of America ("STA"), filed for bankruptcy. And while one could say that the company's epic collapse is more a function of alternative energy politics in Germany, where its 70% parent Solar Millennium AG filed for bankruptcy last December, what is relevant is that last April STA was the proud recipient of a $2.1 billion conditional loan from the Department of Energy, incidentally the second largest loan ever handed out by the DOE's Stephen Chu. That amount was supposed to fund the expansion of the company's 1000 MW Blythe Solar Power Project in Riverside, California. From the funding press release, "This project construction is expected to create over 1,000 direct jobs in Southern California, 7,500 indirect jobs in related industries throughout the United States, and more than 200 long-term operational jobs at the facility itself. It will play a key role in stimulating the American economy,” said Uwe T. Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Solar Trust of America and Executive Chairman of project development subsidiary Solar Millennium, LLC." Instead, what Solar Trust will do is create lots of billable hours for bankruptcy attorneys (at $1,000/hour), and a good old equity extraction for the $22 million DIP lender, which just happens to be NextEra Energy Resources, LLC, another "alternative energy" company which last year received a $935 million loan courtesy of the very same (and now $2.1 billion poorer) Department of Energy, which is also a subsidiary of public NextEra Energy (NEE), in the process ultimately resulting in yet another transfer of taxpayer cash to NEE's private shareholders.
As Bloomberg notes: "The company joins Energy Conversion Devices Inc., a U.S. solar manufacturer that suspended production last year; LSP Energy LP, the owner of a natural-gas-fired power plant in Mississippi; Ener1 Inc., maker of lithium-ion batteries for plug-in electric cars; solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC; and energy storage company Beacon Power Corp. (BCONQ) in bankruptcy."
And so central planning fails again, and again, and again, and again. But it sure will be better with the centrally planned monetary (and in the absence of a working Congress - also fiscal) policy. Because this time it really will be different.
From Reuters:

Solar Trust of America and several affiliates filed for protection from creditors with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware. It estimated to have as much as $10 million of assets, and between $50 million and $100 million of liabilities.

Blythe is about 220 miles (354 km) southeast of Los Angeles.

"We have been working with Solar Trust of America for a couple of years in getting this project going," David Lane, Blythe's city manager, said in an interview. "Although the project is not in the city limits, we are the only city within 100 miles. My sense is that with the large investment in what was to have been the world's largest solar power plant, someone somewhere will buy it and build it."

At least someone's reputation will be tarnished as a result of this latest epic failure of the Obama administration to misallocate capital :

Solar Millennium said it has been sued by former Chief Executive Utz Claassen over public statements by company representatives that he claims have damaged his reputation and left him unable to find a job. Solar Millennium said the lawsuit would not directly affect its insolvency proceedings.Epic embarrassment. And not even a full year ago.
But before that, of course, we had the funding of the plant with a $2.1 billion loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy, the second largest ever, smaller only than Georgia Power's $8.33 billion loan guarantee.Hmmmm........Obama: "All the Choices We've Made Have Been the Right Ones"Read the full story here.

"These boots are made for drilling" - Feigned support of Keystone pipeline by the U.S. pres will only fuel gas prices for the U.S. market.

"These boots are made for drilling" - Feigned support of Keystone pipeline by the U.S. pres will only fuel gas prices for the U.S. market.(Ezra Levant).U.S. President Barack Obama posed in front of a stack of pipes this week, promising to cut through the red tape on the southern leg of the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Oklahoma to Texas.
Which is great. Except that the Oklahoma-to-Texas part of the pipeline was already approved. It had nothing to do with Obama — he only has jurisdiction over the part of the pipeline that crosses the Canada-U.S. border. And he vetoed that part of the pipe last fall.
So it's like Obama has approved attaching one garden hose to another garden hose. But he refuses to attach any of it to the faucet.
There is some utility to the lower leg of the pipeline — there is a bit of a bottleneck in Cushing, Okla., that this pipeline will address.But it's the line from Canada itself that's so important — that could add about 800,000 barrels of oil a day to the U.S. economy.
That oil won't make Americans drive any more. It would only replace current U.S. imports from Venezuela — the Keystone XL would go all the way down to the very same Texas refineries where Hugo Chavez sends his oil, coincidentally 800,000 barrels a day. So it's a pretty straight swap of Canadian ethical oil for Venezuelan conflict oil. And Obama chose Hugo Chavez over us.
He made that choice last fall, and he's paying a political price for it now — gas prices in the U.S. are as high as $1.30 a litre, which is a shock in a country that is used to paying less than a buck a litre (they measure it by the gallon down there).
It's strange for Canadians to pay less for gas than Americans do. But then a lot of things have changed under Obama. Our unemployment rate is 2% lower than theirs. Our corporate tax rate is 20% lower than theirs. Our credit rating is higher. We haven't had any banks fail.
It's like Opposite Day meets Groundhog Day. We're stronger than them, and getting stronger all the time.
Keystone XL has been studied for three years by the U.S. government. The Environmental Protection Agency gave it a thumbs up. The refineries want the oil. All the states involved want the pipeline. Transcanada, the pipeline company, agreed to reroute the pipe in a politically sensitive region of Nebraska. Both the Democrats and Republicans there gave it the thumbs up. But not Obama.
The problem is that he actually hates oil — even though he is the world's largest consumer of it, between his SUV motorcades and his Air Force One jets.
He believes in electric cars — even though there is no market for $41,000 vehicles that only drive for an hour. He believes in solar panels — even though they're unworkable without massive subsidies. His own secretary of energy, Steven Chu, told a Congressional hearing last week that the government's mission is not to lower gas costs — but to get Americans off gas altogether.
Hey, great idea — when we invent that fantasy fuel of the future. But until that happy day — until dilithium crystals are invented — we're stuck with oil and all the wonderful things that come from it, ranging from gas for our ambulances and school buses, to petrochemicals for our iPhones.
You can't get off oil until you know what you're getting on to. And right now, there is no practical replacement.
Dreamy alternatives work for unserious people like science fiction moviemakers. James Cameron's movie Avatar talked about a resource called "Unobtainium." Exactly — we haven't obtained it yet. The president of the United States needs to be a bit more grown up.
Blocking the Keystone XL pipeline isn't going to stop a single American car trip. It will simply ensure that car is fueled by Hugo Chavez and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who must have been popping the champagne while laughing at Obama on TV.Read the full story here.

Obama: Change is 'driving cars that get 55 mpg'.

Obama: Change is 'driving cars that get 55 mpg'.(BWC).At a campaign event in Chicago today, President Obama boasted the changes he made during his first term, particularly his decision boosting higher fuel efficiency standards."Change is the decisions we made to stop waiting for a Congress to do something about our oil addiction and finally raised fuel efficiency standards on our cars and on our trucks so that by next decade we will be driving American made cars that get 55 miles per gallon." he said to heavy applause from his supporters.
Echoing his energy speech from yesterday, Obama insisted that it was time to "double down" on investments in clean energy."Now is the time to stop subsidizing an oil industry that has rarely been more profitable and double down on a clean energy industry that has never been more promising," added Obama, "Solar, wind, and bio fuels.More about the smallest production cars here.

Obama calls for ending dependence on foreign energy attacks Congress.....Again.

Obama calls for ending dependence on foreign energy attacks Congress.....Again.(HD).US President Barack Obama called on Saturday for an end to America's dependence on foreign energy sources -- and to the multi-billion-dollar subsidies given each year to oil companies.
"What we can't do is keep being dependent on other countries for our energy needs," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address. "In America we control our own destiny," he added. "So that's the choice we face - the past, or the future." The comments came as the president faces mounting criticism from Republicans, who have blamed his energy policy for spiking gas prices. The American Automobile Association (AAA) predicts gasoline prices across the United States could average $4.25 a gallon by May, up from $3.83 today.Between 1998 and 2004, prices ranged from $1 to $2.
Prices vary wildly between regions, however, and last week, gasbuddy.com, a website that tracks prices in all 50 states, reported $5.09 a gallon at one Mobil and two Chevron stations in greater Los Angeles.Given that 76 percent of Americans drive themselves to work, and a trip to the store can often mean a long drive to the mall, higher gas prices are a critical issue -- especially in a presidential election year.The president noted that the price of gasoline depended on a lot of factors that are beyond US control. "Unrest in the Middle East can tighten global oil supply," he said. "Growing nations like China or India adding cars to the road increases demand." But he pointed out that his administration had already put in place new standards that will make sure that American cars average nearly 55 miles per gallon (88.5 kilometers per 3.8 liters) by the middle of the next decade - nearly double what they get today. The president also called for ending the $4 billion a year in tax breaks that US oil companies receive each year.
"In the next few weeks, I expect Congress to vote on ending these subsidies," he said. "And when they do, we're going to put every single Member of Congress on record: They can either stand up for oil companies, or they can stand up for the American people." Hmmmmm......."You're eighter with me or against me?"Read the full story here.

Video - American Petroleum Institute Pres Jack Gerard blasts President Obama’s double-speak on oil production.

Stimulus-Backed Company 'Abound Solar' Lays Off 70 Percent of Workforce

Another one bites the dust - Stimulus-Backed Company 'Abound Solar' Lays Off 70 Percent of Workforce.(Heritage).
President Obama used a weekly address in July 2010 to tout his stimulus package’s support for the solar industry. One of the companies he mentioned specifically, Abound Solar, just announced that it will lay off 70 percent of its workforce.
Abound would “creat[e] more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs,” Obama claimed, and would be integral to the administration’s quest to “create whole new industries and hundreds of thousands of new jobs in America.”

But a year and a half later, the company’s staff numbers only 120. It announced Tuesday that it would lay off 180 full time and 100 part time employees, halt solar panel production, and delay the construction of a manufacturing plant in Indiana
Abound received a $400 million loan guarantee under the Energy Department’s Section 1705 renewable energy loan program, which also gave a $535 million guarantee to now-bankrupt Solyndra. Abound has drawn $70 million of its loan guarantee, and won’t be able to draw any more until it resumes production.
Steve Abely, the company’s chief financial officer, rejected comparisons between Abound and Solyndra. “Solyndra cells were never cost competitive,” he insisted. “We are competitive.”Hmmmm........These guys were competitive also, perhaps we should bring them back?Read the full story here.

MFS -The Other News - What the main papers don't say.

  Morning Posting.

• Updated !Earthquakes in the last 24 hours in the world seismic activity situation Fiiji 5.5 - 5.1 ; Russia 5.3 - 5.2 - 5.1 !More info here.

• Two Americans, four Afghans killed on 5th day of Qur’an burning protests.(BM).Kabul (dpa) – Two foreign military advisors, reportedly United States nationals, were killed in a gun fight inside Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry on Saturday, as scores of Afghans took to the streets for a fifth day over the desecration of the Koran by US troops.At least four demonstrators were also killed in a day of violent protests across the country, officials told dpa.“Initial reports indicate an individual turned his weapon against International Security Assistance Force service members in Kabul City today, killing two service members,” NATO said.The Afghan Interior Ministry confirmed that “two international colleagues were murdered” inside the building, adding that an investigation was underway.Saturday’s incident came just days after two US soldiers were killed by an Afghan turncoat inside a military base in eastern Afghanistan.Local media said the latest casualties were also American, while the suspect shooter was thought to be an Afghan policeman. It was not immediately clear whether the shootout was directly related to the Koran burning incident.In the latest protests, at least four Afghans were killed and 51 others, including several policemen, injured during a demonstration in the northern city of Kunduz, an official said.Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, a spokesman for the police in Kunduz, said the protesters had tried to storm a United Nation’s office and the local police’s headquarters, but had failed to get inside.Read the full story here.More here.

• More Stimulus Money Blowing in the Wind.(BG).By Scott G. Erickson.Then-candidate Barack Obama made many promises while on the campaign trail for the presidency in 2008; however, few remain as dubious as his declaration that an America under his leadership would see the creation of a robust “green” economy, ready to power America into the twenty-first century.Promising to create millions of “green” jobs, Obama stated during his campaign that, “We’ll invest $15 billion a year over the next decade in renewable energy, creating five million new green jobs that pay well, can’t be outsourced and help end our dependence on foreign oil.”So where exactly are all those “green” jobs?A Wall Street Journal investigation into the relationship between job-creation claims by the Obama administration and stimulus money targeted toward the development and expansion of our nation’s “green” energy sector has revealed an apparent disconnect between rhetoric and reality.Specifically, the Journal report focused on funds apportioned to companies developing renewable energy from with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). According to Section 1603 of ARRA, allocated resources should be dispensed to create jobs and renewable energy such as wind, geothermal, and solar, exclusive of oil and fossil fuel sources.Since the passage of ARRA, over $10 billion in stimulus funds have been distributed through the 1603 program, which expired in December 2011. According to the Obama administration, this has been a boon to America’s renewable energy sector.Money allocated through the 1603 program “has played a central role in the dramatic expansion of renewable energy generation in the United States, with energy generated from wind and solar set to double in the president’s first term,” a White House spokesman said to the Wall Street Journal.But where, again, are all those “green” jobs?Although recipients of 1603 funds claimed to have created over 100,000 jobs as a direct result of the stimulus money, little evidence exists to back those claims.In one example cited by the WSJ, Raser Technologies received a $33 million grant to develop a geothermal plant in Beaver County, Utah. In the year following receipt of the grant, Raser’s workforce dropped from 42 employees to 27.Raser subsequently filed for bankruptcy protection and now employs less than 10 individuals.Perhaps the example of Raser Technologies is an anomaly in an otherwise successful program? Perhaps not.Again, the WSJ found discrepancies in the stated amount of jobs “created” among 1603 recipients focusing on wind power development and actual employees still working in the field.Although nearly $5 billion was allocated to wind farm development, of the 7,200 workers employed at the height of construction only 300 remain employed today. It appears that whatever employment may have been generated through the 1603 program was often temporary at best.In fact, many of the jobs purported to have been created through 1603 funding were actually ancillary to the energy programs themselves. Many companies cited work in the fields of hospitality management and retail as jobs “created” through 1603 funding because the presence of renewable energy construction projects helped to sustain these industries within the local economy.This type of data manipulation undermines any attempt to accurately quantify the extent to which 1603 funding “created” jobs.As our nation’s unemployment rate continues to hover around 9 percent, with a more expansive underemployment rate of over 15 percent, common sense suggests that, insofar as job creation is concerned, the 1603 program has been yet another stimulus failure on the part of the Obama administration.Undeterred, however, President Obama has requested that Congress reinstall the 1603 program into the 2013 budget.Read the full story here.

• U.S. Per Capita Debt Worse than Greece.(FB).U.S. per capita debt is larger than that of Europe’s most financially distressed countries, including Greece, a new analysis reveals.U.S. debt per capita is nearly $45,000, approximately 15 percent higher than that of Greece ($38,937), and more than double that of Portugal ($19,989).Republican analysts on the Senate Budget Committee calculated the figures using the most recent data available from the International Monetary Fund.Under President Obama’s fiscal year 2013 budget, U.S. debt per capita is projected to reach $75,000.As the Free Beacon noted on Wednesday, Americans born today will owe more than $1.5 million to pay off the national debt, which is currently about $16 trillion, and growing.Read and see the full story here.

• Harry Reid and Senate Democrats Are Holding Up 24 ‘Jobs Bills’ Passed By the House.(BG).With Gallup’s recent report that the U.S. underemployment rate now stands at a jaw-dropping 19 percent, Speaker John Boehner wants to know why Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Democrats have yet to take action on the 24 jobs bills passed by the Republican-led House of Representatives. If the president really wants to get the economy moving again, maybe he’ll pick up the phone and call Senator Reid and ask Senate Democrats to get off their rear ends.Some political analysts believe Speaker Boehner’s comments may forecast the Republican Party’s congressional election strategy. According to Reuters, everywhere Speaker Boehner goes, he now carries in his left breast-coat pocket a four by eight card that lists the two dozen jobs bills that have passed the House but lay dormant in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Boehner’s card, says Nathan Gonzales of the Rothenberg Political Report, may presage a broader electoral strategy: “If they can demonstrate what they are for, they can rebut Obama’s charge that they are ‘obstructionists’ who aren’t for anything,” Gonzales said. “But we have to see to what extent Republicans are willing and able to follow this playbook.”All 242 House Republicans have been urged by leadership to flash these cards at Washington news conferences as well as town-hall meetings and campaign events back home.For his part, Sen. Reid has met Speaker Boehner’s jobs challenge with derision: Reid has called the Republican proposals “subterfuge” and said that cutting regulations would “make people sicker, our air dirtier and our food less safe.”“That’s what they’re doing to create jobs,” Reid scoffed a day after Boehner touted the jobs bills on a TV talk show.Speaker Boehner’s move to go on offense about jobs will prove critical in an election likely to center on America’s stagnant economic growth and persistently high unemployment numbers. Democrats need to win 25 seats to regain majority control of the House of Representatives.Read the full story here.

• US preacher demands Obama act on “Muslim war against Christians”.(BM).American preacher Franklin Graham called on US President Barack Obama to act on the “war on Christians” in the Islamic world being conducted by Muslims.Graham, the son of famous evangelist Billy Graham, made the comments in response to the ongoing case against a 34-year Iranian pastor who is threatened with execution for his conversion to Christianity when he was 19-years-old.“There’s millions of Muslims out there that don’t agree with this — they’re wonderful people, Greta — but they’re under the system of Sharia law [that] they can’t get out from under because the law — the Quran — demands if a person leaves Islam, they are to be killed,” Graham told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren.“They’re given a chance to recant . . . but if they don’t recant, if they don’t denounce their faith, like this man was told to renounce his faith in Jesus Christ, but he refused to do it. And so therefore, they’re going to hang him.“According to the court records, what we can determine, he never was a Muslim — his parents were Muslim and he [became] a Christian — I think it was at age 19 — and what they have charged him on is apostasy under Islamic law,” Graham said. “But since he hadn’t been a Muslim, they are going hang him anyway because his parents were Muslim.”The Fox News host then said that Obama and the US administration is unlikely they could do much to intervene in the pastor’s situation. Graham, however, disagreed.“The president could call for a prayer meeting at the White House. He could make a statement. We apologized to the Afghans because a Qur’an was mistakenly burned . . . and he apologizes to the Afghans after an Afghan soldier killed two Americans,” Graham said. “But why doesn’t he speak out? He could. He could use the power of the White House to call pastors together at the White House and have a prayer meeting for this guy, but he hasn’t done it.”The statements haven’t gone over well in Egypt, where Christians continue to struggle to ensure full citizenship in the country.Read the full story here.

• Muslim Judge Dismisses Assault Case; Muslim Perpetrator Caught on Tape and Confessed to Crime.(BP).By Diana West.Think you’ve heard it all? Think you’re shock-proof? Read the following report by on a recent trial in Pennsylvania in which an apparently Muslim judge (he states, “I’m a Muslim” while pronouncing his judgement) dismissed harassment charges against a Muslim defendant (despite witness and police corroboration) due to “insufficient evidence” while reading the riot act to the plaintiff for having “trashed the essence of [Muslims'] being” by dressing up as “Zombie Mohammed” for a Halloween parade. First Amendment? What First Amendment? This judge has a copy of the Koran on the bench.From the blog Opposing Views: By Al Stefanelli. The Pennsylvania State Director of American Atheists, Inc., Mr. Ernest Perce V., was assaulted by a Muslim while participating in a Halloween parade. Along with a Zombie Pope, Ernest was costumed as Zombie Muhammad. The assault was caught on video, the Muslim man admitted to his crime and charges were filed in what should have been an open-and-shut case. That’s not what happened, though.The defendant is an immigrant and claims he did not know his actions were illegal, or that it was legal in this country to represent Muhammad in any form. To add insult to injury, he also testified that his 9 year old son was present, and the man said he felt he needed to show his young son that he was willing to fight for his Prophet.The case went to trial, and as circumstances would dictate, Judge Mark Martin is also a Muslim. What transpired next was surreal. The Judge not only ruled in favor of the defendant, but called Mr. Perce a name and told him that if he were in a Muslim country, he’d be put to death. Judge Martin’s comments included, “Having had the benefit of having spent over 2 and a half years in predominantly Muslim countries I think I know a little bit about the faith of Islam. In fact I have a copy of the Koran here and I challenge you sir to show me where it says in the Koran that Mohammad arose and walked among the dead. I think you misinterpreted things. Before you start mocking someone else’s religion you may want to find out a little bit more about it it makes you look like a dufus and Mr. (Defendant) is correct. In many Arabic speaking countries something like this is definitely against the law there. In their society in fact it can be punishable by death and it frequently is in their society. Judge Martin then offered a lesson in Islam, stating, “Islam is not just a religion, it’s their culture, their culture. It’s their very essence their very being. They pray five times a day towards Mecca to be a good Muslim, before you die you have to make a pilgrimage to Mecca unless you are otherwise told you can not because you are too ill too elderly, whatever but you must make the attempt. Their greetings wa-laikum as-Salâm (is answered by voice) may god be with you. Whenever, it’s very common when speaking to each other it’s very common for them to say uh this will happen it’s it they are so immersed in it. Judge Martin further complicates the issue by not only abrogating the First Amendment, but completely misunderstanding it when he said,“Then what you have done is you have completely trashed their essence, their being. They find it very very very offensive. I’m a Muslim, I find it offensive. But you have that right, but you’re way outside your boundaries or first amendment rights. This is what, and I said I spent about 7 and a half years living in other countries. when we go to other countries it’s not uncommon for people to refer to us as ugly Americans this is why we are referred to as ugly Americans, because we are so concerned about our own rights we don’t care about other people’s rights as long as we get our say but we don’t care about the other people’s say”But wait, it gets worse. The Judge refused to allow the video into evidence, and then said,“All that aside I’ve got here basically.. I don’t want to say he said she said but I’ve got two sides of the story that are in conflict with each other.”And,“The preponderance of, excuse me, the burden of proof… “And,“…he has not proven to me beyond a reasonable doubt that this defendant is guilty of harassment, therefore I am going to dismiss the charge”.Local ABC affiliate coverage here.Audio excerpts of the trial proceeding, including the judge’s ruling, here.Read the full story here.

• Spain: Pakistani Refugee Calls for Koran to be Banned.(IVE).A Paki living in Spain named Imran Farasat has launched a petition calling for the Koran to be banned. He has sent it to numerous government officials, ministries and organisations.The Koran is a major threat to the free society of Spain. A book which clearly offers a message of jihad, killing, hating, discrimination and vengeance for that reason cannot be compatible with the Spanish system in any sense. It is a book totally contrary to what the law and constitution of Spain say. And it is inciting hatred and violence in our country. Farasat is a Pakistani citizen with legal residence in Spain as a political refugee. He has his own blog called World Without Islam. It's mostly in Spanish but there is some material in other languages, including English.Read the full story here.

• Canada - Maid of the Mist replacement Hornblower talks future plans, its Canadian connection.(Yahoo).When Niagara Parks Commission awarded the lease for its boat tour operations to a California-based Hornblower Canada, many started wondering about the company that will soon be ferrying passengers through the Niagara Gorge.Hornblower Canada replaces Maid of the Mist Steamboat Company, the Canadian-run, American-owned ferry service that has operated at the base of the Falls since 1846. The new tour boats are scheduled to start running in 2014.Reader reaction indicated that many felt the Parks Commission should have given the new contract to a Canadian company, even though the Glynn family of Lewiston, NY, has owned Maid of the Mist since 1971.On the phone from the San Francisco headquarters, Hornblower spokesperson Tegan Firth hoped to clarify some of those details."The parent company is based in California, but Hornblower Canada is a Canadian company," she told Yahoo! Canada News. "The vessels will be Canadian vessels and all of the economic benefit, all of the taxes we pay, all of the people we employ are Canadian.""One of the things we're trying to do is make sure that we [are] going to return a fair economic benefit to [Canada] and to the community and that's really important for us," she added. Janice Thomson, chair of the Niagara Parks Commission, said they evaluated each bid based on a set of criteria that included everything from safety, ticket pricing and innovation, to the lease amount payable to the commission.A team of outside evaluators scored the criteria and verified the sustainability of each bid. Hornblower came out with the highest overall score. Thomson addressed criticism that the contract should have gone to a Canadian company by noting that Maid of the Mist was also owned by an American parent company, so the new situation would be no different. She added that the commission awarded the contract to the bid that would "offer the best value to Ontarians.""It's a company that's obviously going to hire Canadians because the business happens in Canada, so the employees will be from the area and all the materials they use in the course of their business are going to be sourced in Canada," she said.Firth said the company's first step is to modernize the tour infrastructure all the way through, from upgrading the ticketing service to building a mobile website that people can access through their smartphones.The new 599-passenger vessels will also be designed to accommodate different types of cruisers, with more seats for those who want to enjoy the view from a more comfortable vantage point, "dry zones," and an enhanced viewing deck for the more adventurous.Hornblower's expansion into Canada follows the 32-year-old company's recent move toward America's East Coast. In 2008, Hornblower Cruises began operating ferries to New York's Statue of Liberty and Ellis Islands.Read the full story here.

• Foreign ‘hands’ attacking Islam, region, says Saudi King.(BM).CAIRO: Foreign and “unnamed hands” are targeting Islam, the Islamic world and Arabs in the recent events in the region, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah said.The king, who was giving a televised address Friday night to a conference of prominent Saudis, did not name any country in particular.But Saudi officials have used similar terms in recent weeks to suggest a connection with Iran, a Shia country at odds with Sunni Saudi Arabia.“There were hands that are known to you all … behind what has happened in the Arab world, regrettably targeting Islam and the Arabs,” he said.Sunni Saudi Arabia is wary of the wave of Arab Spring uprisings, particularly in nearby Bahrain, where a Shiite majority is demanding greater rights from its Sunni rulers.However, the king said that the kingdom strongly backs the uprising in Syria and supports all action against Syria’s President Bashar Assad.It is not the first time leaders in the region have referred to “unnamed hands” being behind events on the ground. In Egypt, the military junta has numerous times accused “invisible hands” of being behind the violent clashes in the country in recent months.Hmmm.......And who has forgotten the king's call "To cut of the head of the snake"?Read the full story here

From the Solyndra script book: " Obama: Use Algae as substitute for oil ".

From the Solyndra script book: " Obama: Use Algae as substitute for oil ".HT: CriticalAnalist..(Examiner)President Obama admitted today that he does not have a "silver bullet" solution for skyrocketing gas prices, but he proposed alternative energy sources such as "a plant-like substance, algae" as a way of cutting dependence on oil by 17 percent.
"We’re making new investments in the development of gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel that’s actually made from a plant-like substance, algae -- you've got a bunch of algae out here," Obama said at the University of Miami today."If we can figure out how to make energy out of that, we'll be doing alright. Believe it or not, we could replace up to 17 percent of the oil we import for transportation with this fuel that we can grow right here in America."
The Department of Energy (DOE) currently spends about $85 million on 30 research projects "to develop algal biofuels," according to the White House, which announced that Obama is committing another $14 million to the idea.Obama did not say when he expected algae-based fuel to reach that level, but the federal government has a dodgy track record with respect to developing alternative vehicle fuels.
Biodiesel, for example, accounted for less than 1 percent of the diesel fuel market as of 2008, according to the Energy Information Administration. And of course there's ethanol -- after four decades, tens of billions of dollars in subsidies, and draconian mandates that force it on unwilling consumers, ethanol was five percent of vehicle consumption (by volume) as of 2008.
Although algae-to-gas is a very different idea, it is still in its early stages.Oil industry leaders reject Obama's claim to have given significant support to oil production. "These have been the most difficult three years from a policy standpoint that I've ever seen in my career," Bruce Vincent, president of Swift Energy, an oil and gas company in Houston, said yesterday. "They've done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting."
Obama affirmed the need to protect the planet by developing clean energy alternatives, but The Washington Examiner's Michael Barone argues that he hasn't been consistent even on that front. "We’ve prohibited a pipeline, the safest way to transport oil, from Canada, but we’re aiding Mexico in offshore drilling, which is riskier, and by a firm that lacks the experience of the U.S. firms we have been trying to prevent drilling in the same body of water," Barone wrote yesterday. "Does this make any sense at all?"Hmmmm...........We've got  got a whole bunch of Suckers out there.Read the full story here.

                                          Hmmm.....Perhaps we Chinese can sell it Obama ?
                                                     

Iran giving contradictory signals to Certain EU Members.

Iran giving contradictory signals to Certain EU Members.(JPost).Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Salehi took a conciliatory tone on Tehran's relations with Europe on Monday, a day after cutting off oil sales to two key countries, saying that Europeans and Iran need one another, Iran's Mehr News reported.
Salehi said he believes relations with Europe will soon return to their "earlier state," adding that the current deteriorated state of ties cannot continue for long."Europeans cannot be needless of us, and Iran, due to its old relations with European countries, needs Europe," he said.
On Sunday, Iran announced that it had stopped selling crude oil to British and French companies, a retaliatory measure against the latest round of European sanctions on the Islamic state's lifeblood, oil.
"Exporting crude to British and French companies has been stopped ... we will sell our oil to new customers," spokesman Alireza Nikzad was quoted as saying by the ministry of petroleum website.In a contradictory report, Iranian broadcaster PressTV quoted Iran's Deputy Oil Minister Ahmad Kalebani, as threatening to stop selling oil to additional European countries.
Kalebani reportedly said Tehran would take further measures if "EU hostilities continue," according to PressTV, which listed Spain, the Netherlands, Greece, Germany, Italy and Portugal as countries that could be targeted.China rebuked Iran on Monday for stopping oil sales to British and French companies over the weekend, calling for renewed efforts at dialogue over an escalating stand-off over Tehran's controversial nuclear program."We have consistently upheld dialogue and negotiation as the way to resolve disputes between countries, and do not approve of exerting pressure or using confrontation to resolve issues," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said when asked about Iran's ban on oil sales to British and French firms.Hmmmmm.......Read the full story here.

Related - 'Japan to win exemption from Iran sanctions by US'.(JPost).Tokiyo - Japan is likely to win an exemption from US sanctions by reducing its imports of crude oil from Iran by at least 11 percent per year, the Yomiuri newspaper said on Tuesday.
The two countries reached an agreement at talks last week, with a formal deal expected by the end of this month, the report said, citing unnamed sources.
The United States, angry over Iran's nuclear program, wants Japan, to cut back on Iranian imports.
Japan is the third-biggest customer for Iranian oil. It needs to import more oil in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, and the country's refiners have yet to make significant cuts, awaiting the Japanese government's instructions.
The United States says it will punish financial institutions that deal with Iran's central bank, the main clearing house for oil revenues. A country can earn a waiver from the sanctions if it significantly reduces trade with Iran.
The US sanctions, which President Barack Obama signed into law in December, would penalize financial institutions for undertaking transactions with Iran's central bank, exposing the US operations of Japanese banks that deal with Iran.
As of January 2012, Iran exports 22% of its oil to China, 14% to Japan, 13% to India, 10% to South Korea, 7% to Italy, 7% to Turkey, 6% to Spain and the remainder to France, Greece ( other European countries), Taiwan, Sri Lanka, South Africa.
Hmmmm.....Turkey imports at least 175,000 barrels a day from Iran and intends to increase it's import they don't need a waiver and risk no sanctions since they're Obama's 'trusted' allies.Read the full story here.