BARBWIRE
by
ANDREW BARBANO

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Aug. 2012-Aug. 2013: the Barbwire's Silver Anniversary Year
Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

Enron II: Nevada's Battle-Born Toxic Event
Indigence and indigestion from ingestion of Warren Buffett's buffet
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 6-6-2013 Sparks Tribune
Updated 6-7 and 6-17-2013

   Everybody knows the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
   Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
   Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
   That's how it goes. Everybody knows.

Everybody knows the scene is dead
   But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
   What everybody knows.

— Leonard Cohen


HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place Award

WE WON: BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION CONFAB IN GOMORRAH SOUTH

Barbwire.TV

Watch NevadaLabor.com for show times. Help us get the word out.

Support the project at http://resurge.tv#donate

SUING FOR SCHOOLS
Updated 8-30-2011
Reruns on Carson-Dayton 226

Additional programs
on Boulder City cable. Go to bcnv.org and then
go to the BCTV link.

If Reform Fails: Health Care, Jobs and Unions — new power to the people on the public airwaves

The program premiers were available to every television set in the region because of a high-mileage media hybrid.

The shows appeared on both commercial and community stations. The non-corporate entity produced the events, commercial TV greatly expanded distribution.

Thus began an ongoing series of sane public interest programs which generate both entertaining heat and more than a little light.

Please spread the word and consider contributing to the cause online at ReSurge.TV.

You may also take the public option known as the U.S. Postal Service and send a check or money order to ReSurge.TV, P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

Your contribution will help fund the distribution as well as ongoing efforts at developing new media, including a regional, non-corporate community radio station and the return of community television to Reno-Sparks-Washoe.

You are present at the creation of what I hope can become a new media model where the programming accurately reflects what's happening on the ground and the media impact is powerful enough to forcefully pass the message upward.

Thanks.

Be well. Raise hell.

Andrew


Click here for selected on-demand re-runs from the 2009, 2010 and 2011 Barbwire.TV archives

Barbwire.TV:
15-year overnight success

Daily Sparks Tribune 2-10-2008

The Barbwire's Greatest Hits
Highlights from radio days
mp3 file


HAT TRICK: Barbwire wins 3rd straight Nevada Press Association First-Place Award

WE WON: BIG NEWS FROM THE NEVADA PRESS ASSOCIATION CONFAB IN GOMORRAH SOUTH

You just bought the best investment advice in the world, for which Warren Buffett will make you pay for the rest of your life.

Last week came word that the legendary billionaire investor is buying NVEnergy for about $10 billion.

Thanks to last-minute legislative skulduggery, he will get the closest thing to a deregulated monopoly outside of major league baseball and insurance.

NVE's hit men did a braggy half-hour with TV commentator Jon Ralston.

Lobbyist Peter "Snidely Whiplash" Ernaut asserted that lawmakers and voters are too stupid to understand the nuances of utility legislation.

"Utility issues are very complex," Ernaut said, adding that it takes many years to become expert.

Having served an apprenticeship under Dr. David Schwartz, the best utility economist in the United States, I know first-hand that he's wrong.

Which is not to say that Senate Bill 123 doesn't require serious reading between the lines.

My biggest objection lies in its whoring of green energy.

Abusing the name of alternative fuels, these lowlifes not only engineered a huge transfer of money from ratepayers, but also took a giant leap down the slippery slope of deregulation.

Call it Enron, Part Deux.

Before SB123, the Public Utilities Commission had two often-conflicting roles: Regulating the industry and balancing stockholder profit against ratepayer fairness.

In the name of green energy, SB123 has added new competing interests: Nevada jobs and general state economic benefit. Seems reasonable but in reality it means ratepayers are now one-quarter instead of half the equation.

Divide and conquer.

Worse, environmental issues will be mostly removed from PUC purview. Nevada's never much cared about pollution anyway. Look at all the abandoned mines and our two nuclear test sites.

The principal criticism of SB123 came from Assembly Republicans, notably my former Tribune colleague in columny Ira Hansen, R-Sparks.

We have always disagreed on most issues with the notable exception of corporate welfare.

The uberconservative Nevada Policy Research Institute issued a couple of detailed criticisms of the measure.

Dr. Schwartz would have given them an A.

The Nevada State AFL-CIO, representing workers desperate for jobs, supported the bill.

But the union representing NVE employees did not.

"IBEW Local 1245’s initial reaction to this news is negative. We know the great damage that MidAmerican (Buffett's company) has inflicted on the workers and utility customers of Iowa, Utah, Illinois and Oregon," the union stated.

Warren Buffet has done us one favor: He served notice that the U.S. economy will be in a sideways slide at best for the next decade.

One of the first things you learn in college investment class is that when times get tough, put your money in basics that people must buy: food, gasoline, electricity.

Look where Mr. Dairy Queen of Omaha is placing his bets.

Go to Smoking Guns, below,  to see what other commentators are saying.

Much more at the NevadaLabor.com Energy War Room.

From last week's Barbwire —> Underfunded and undereducated student answers to the 2013 legislative civics quiz...

WARREN BUFFETT: All you can eat for $4.99 at the Cal-Neva. [PSYCHIC PREMONITION HANGOVER ALLERGY ALERT: The latter Warren Buffet line was submitted to the Tribune editor prior to the announcement that the rich guy from Dairy Queen Land is taking over NVEnergy, formerly Nevada Power/Sierra Pacific Powerful. Ratepayer rape and pillage now has a new grandfatherly face. BFD]

WARREN BUFFETT: Isn't he the drunk who sang "Margaritaville"?

For a lotta laughs at legislator expense, go to the 2013 looney tunes legislative lexicon.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno.

WEB EXTRAS...

HONOR YOUR DON. Keep sending comments supporting legendary Nevada photographer Don Dondero (1920-2003) for the Nevada Press Association Hall of Fame.

His life's work appeared worldwide, including this newspaper.

Enlist in the campaign to install Big Don.

Please send me your memories and endorsements via e-mail or to P.O. Box 10034, Reno NV 89510.

The Barbwire got the late Reno Gazette-Journal columnist Guy Richardson elected last year.

Let's go for a repeat.

BARBWIRE.TV. Support the return of community TV to these parts.

If last year's elections didn't convince you of the need, the 2013 legislature certainly will.

Join up. You may donate at ReSurge.TV or contact me.

This is important.

Thank you.

"Media is the plural of mediocre."
                              — Jimmy Breslin


 

VOTE FOR THE LUCKY 13, the most powerful Nevadans of 2013. Send nominations to <barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us>

Last year's rogues gallery will be linked to the expanded web edition of this column at NevadaLabor.com/

LET'S GET IT ON. E-me to get on the Barbwire News bulletin list for information not filtered through corporate lenses.

I broke a bushel of major stories last year which the above lead item will very probably top.

Turn on, tune in and tell a friend.

Be well. Raise hell. / Esté bien. Haga infierno. (Pardon my Spanglish.)

____________

Andrew Barbano is a 44-year Nevadan, chair of the Nevada César Chávez Committee, producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration, first vice-president and political action chair of the Reno-Sparks NAACP, labor/consumer/civil rights advocate, member of Communications Workers of America Local 9413/AFL-CIO and editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. Check local listings for other Nevada cable systems. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us. Barbwire by Barbano has originated in the Daily Sparks Tribune since 1988.

Smoking Guns...

More fat pickings from the Buffett buffet

Will electric rates soar when MidAmerican takes over NV Energy?
Las Vegas Review-Journal / 5-30-2013

The union answers "yes" and it will be even worse for workers
IBEW Local 1245/AFL-CIO 5-30-2013

NV Energy, gambling still rule the roost
Steve Sebelius / Las Vegas Review-Journal 5-31-2013

Bad News & Worse News Dept.
Former Nevada Consumer Advocate Jon Wellinghoff to leave FERC chairmanship
Las Vegas Review-Journal / 5-29-2013

Mega-investor Warren Buffet to acquire NVEnergy
Las Vegas Review-Journal / 5-29-2013

Public shut out of utility legislation, putting ratepayers at risk
Dennis Myers / Reno News & Review / 5-23-2013
NevadaLabor.com Energy War Room

Bon appetít

Barbwire Corporate Welfare Archive
Barbwire Corporate Propaganda Archive
Cabellyup.com

Longing for the wisdom of the grateful dead
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-23-2013 Sparks Tribune

Star-stuck: Dirty deals for dirty movies
Ghostrider Nicolas Cage sticks it to school kids
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from
the 5-16-2013 Daily Sparks Tribune

Mr. Wynnderful waxes wealthier whilst we wither
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 5-9-2013 Daily Sparks Tribune

FROM HUGH JACKSON
THE LAS VEGAS MEANER GLEANER
The best Nevada political commentator alive

Policy with the stars
Of Wynn service, lip service and Cage fighting
Las Vegas CityLife / 5-15-2013

Rules of Disengagement
Gov. Veto El Obtúse struck dumb, but with a smile
Las Vegas CityLife / 4-17-2013

 

...and more ammo...

We Don't Need No Education
The continuing Barbwire series

The Post-Dated Recession: Pay me now or pay me later
Barbwire by Barbano / Expanded from the 9-6-2012 Daily Sparks Tribune

The Post-dated Recession
By Joshua H. Silavent / Daily Sparks Tribune / 5-3-2011

Union decline and rising inequality in two charts
by Colin Gordon
Economic Policy Institute / 6-5-2012

Used in
journalist Mark Robison's extensive Hard Labor: Nevada unions tout role in helping workers, firms, economy (Sunday 2 Sept. 2012 Reno Gazette-Journal, page one, Reno Rebirth section of the print edition). Union men Jim Burrell, Paul McKenzie and Guy Louis Rocha did the movement proud. Not included in the RGJ online edition.

WOMEN AND UNIONS — ORPHAN MAJORITIES
The Barbwire Labor Day column
Reno Gazette-Journal / 9-3-2012


Nevada Press Assn. Better Newspaper Contest
HAT TRICK: Barbwire takes first place three years in a row.

The winning entries
Suing for Schools: The 20-year shuck

Expanded from the 2-21-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune

Click here to view the show on your desktop

RED flags flying low over Sparks
Expanded from the 1-10-2010 Daily Sparks Tribune

The wrath of self-righteous racism
Expanded from the 11-8-2009 Daily Sparks Tribune





The campaign against forcibly-paid newspaper obituaries
And they wonder why the newspaper business is dying?

 

The Dean's List

   The Dean of Reno Bloggers could very well be Andrew Barbano, self-described "fighter of public demons," who started putting his "Barbwire" columns online in 1996 and now runs 10 sites.
RENO NEWS & REVIEW, 11-9-2006

The 2009 first-place Nevada Press Association award winners
Tony the Tiger & the flaky NFL
Barbwire / 11-30-2008
Deregulation is never having to say you're sorry
Barbwire / 8-3-2008
Nevada: A good place to visit, but do you want to live here?
Barbwire / 6-15-2008


...and more ammo yet


 

 

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Copyright © 1982-2013 Andrew Barbano

Andrew Barbano is a 44-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee, He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.

Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.

Site composed and maintained by Deciding Factors, CWA 9413 signatory

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