Must-See Pavement TV

SOLAR ROADWAYS

According to this video, 25,000 square miles of U.S. roads and highways absorb the sun’s rays. If we paved a third of that with solar-panels, we’d meet all our electricity needs without burning a single lump of coal. And this guy has a plan. It’s the most exciting video – or certainly the most exciting road-surface video – you will see all year. (Thanks, Ed!)

HIS BAR WILL HAVE BETTER MUSIC

Thanks to The Daily Beast for pointing me to this story: the Fox News guy planning to open a gay bar next to the Ground Zero mosque.

EMIS

Want another truly, truly speculative little drug stock? EMIS may absolutely lose every penny you invest; but guru thinks the risk/reward at $1.25 is good. If you have profits in some of his other suggestions, maybe take a little for a small gamble here?

RANGEL

Last week, I posted this New York Sun piece to the effect that Charlie Rangel is being railroaded.

Herewith the Washington Post:

Charlie Rangel is No Crook
By Eugene Robinson
Washington Post
August, 5, 2010 p. A17

Charlie Rangel is no crook. He’s right to insist on the opportunity to clear his name, because the charges against him range from the technical all the way to the trivial.

All right, there’s one exception: On his federal tax returns, Rangel failed to declare rental income from a vacation property he owns in the Dominican Republic — a mortifying embarrassment for the one-time chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the tax code. But certain facts about this transgression rarely get mentioned. For one thing, Rangel’s so-called “villa” can’t be very palatial, since it cost only $82,750 when he bought it in 1987. For another, Rangel has already filed amended tax returns and paid everything he owed, plus penalties and interest.

The remaining charges are yawn-inducing. Even assuming that the allegations, as presented to the House Ethics Committee, are wholly true, the case against Rangel has a Gertrude Stein problem: There’s no there there.

☞ In much more detail, but actually quite fascinating, Congressman Rangel’s own response to the Ethics Committee: here. (As someone who follows the ins and outs of rent-stabilized versus rent-controlled apartments, I found the stuff on Apartment 10U particularly interesting and, at least as presented, exculpatory.)

One snip:

Congressman Rangel helped a public college in his Congressional district to establish and fund an academic program in public service for disadvantaged students [horrors!]. To support that effort, he agreed to donate his official papers, allowed the school to name the program in his honor and introduced college officials to potential donors [none of whom had pending matters before his committee] [horrors!]. Congressman Rangel is hardly the only member of the Congressional leadership to engage in such activity. Senate Minority Leader McConnell, for example, has donated his official papers, lent his name and raised millions of dollars from corporate donors to launch the McConnell Center for Political Leadership at the University of Louisville . . .

☞ No one is saying Rangel made no errors. All of us make errors – or, if we’re hugely busy, have staffs that make errors on our behalf. We need to apologise for them and make them good – as Charlie Rangel has. And then move on.

Tomorrow: ETFs (sorry, got bumped by that not-to-be-missed Solar Roadway video)