# Bush is right and Kennedy's wrong: liberal heads explode over Cape Wind project **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 9, 2006, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052 "2006-05-09T12:36:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/101 "2006-05-10T22:29:13Z")
> [@Plynck](#): > > I am probably a bit biased here. I live in Lynn, a working class city on the coast of Massachusetts. I usually get down to the ocean on the weekends during the summer. I’ve asked myself whether my pleasure would be lessened by a wind farm off my coast, and I can honestly say that it wouldn’t bother me at all. Well, hell, _anything_ would be an improvement on the City of Sin. 😉 Ipswich, actually. Why do you ask? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/102 "2006-05-10T22:32:05Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > Well, hell, _anything_ would be an improvement on the City of Sin. 😉 Ya nevah come out the way you went in! ---
**Author:** ![SisterCoyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/958977/32.png) [@SisterCoyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SisterCoyote)\ **Post date:** [May 10, 2006, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/103 "2006-05-10T23:33:27Z")
> [@Homebrew](#): > > There are windmills on Bolivar Peninsula in Texas. They are located along the road that runs behind the houses along the beach. I think they look rather grand. I don’t understand the opposition to them. I was thinking this exact same thing about the wind farms in northern California, actually. And you _really_ have to be on a back road to see them, IME. ---
**Author:** ![Moirai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/96bed5/32.png) [@Moirai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moirai)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/104 "2006-05-11T00:13:26Z")
I have vacationed on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard in the past, and I will do so again. The Cape Wind project will not make me change my mind. If you build it, they will still come… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/105 "2006-05-11T03:18:52Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > I have vacationed on Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard in the past, and I will do so again. > > The Cape Wind project will not make me change my mind. If you build it, they will still come… 😉 And with any amount of luck, it’ll be a little less crowded… 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Some\_User\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce7236/32.png) [@Some\_User\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Some_User_Name)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/106 "2006-05-11T04:09:36Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > :dubious: Not at all what I said. If these folks weren’t rich, the politicians would ignore them. As it is, the will of the people is overwhelmingly in favor of this project; it’s only a few people in a specific region who don’t want it, but their immense aggregate wealth and political clout means the project is in danger. Were this project in West Virginia, you wouldn’t have heard of it. > > Daniel Yep. If this was in West Virginia, you’d never have heard about it. [http://www.mtnhome4u.com/windmills.html](http://www.mtnhome4u.com/windmills.html) [http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16383](http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=16383) > **[Wind Farms Draw Mixed Response in Appalachia](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5300507)** > > Huge windmills -- promoted as a source of clean, renewable power -- are sprouting up on mountaintops in the Appalachian states. But some local opponents say the tall turbines blight the rural landscape. Yes, I know this is a wosh. I’m still upset that they put these things in one of my favorite areas of WV. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/107 "2006-05-11T12:25:22Z")
> [@Una Persson](#): > > I think coal plants look cool. But you’re the Coalgoddess. You’re just weird that way. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/108 "2006-05-11T13:06:31Z")
> [@Plynck](#): > > I am probably a bit biased here. I live in Lynn, a working class city on the coast of Massachusetts. I usually get down to the ocean on the weekends during the summer. I’ve asked myself whether my pleasure would be lessened by a wind farm off my coast, and I can honestly say that it wouldn’t bother me at all. Hmmm… You wouldn’t mind the sight of meat grinders in the ocean, and yet you live in a place where there are no fewer than two nail salons on every block. Gotcha. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/109 "2006-05-11T13:47:30Z")
> [@SomeUserName](#): > > Yep. If this was in West Virginia, you’d never have heard about it. Lordy, some things in those links are strange. West Virginians put up with **mountaintop removal coal mining** , but they bitch about a few wind farms? I’m not arguing that wind turbines have no downsides at all, and I understand the aesthetic argument some people make against them. If we could magically get unlimited energy with no environmental impact, I’d oppose putting up wind turbines too. But we don’t have that luxury. We’ve got to get energy from somewhere, and we’ve got to take into account the problems of pollution and other environmental damage that are produced by our getting it. (And if we **do** magically get that free no-impact energy someday, the wind farms will be much more easily reversible than other types of energy production.) ISTM that most anti-turbine types are not objectively evaluating the pros and cons of wind farms in comparison to other energy sources, but instead just reacting with distaste against an industrial installation that’s new and unfamiliar. (And what’s with the “meat grinder” comparison, by the way? To me the turbines look like pinwheels or upright fans. Meat grinders look like [this](http://www.kitchenemporium.com/info/18grinder.html); there’s no real resemblance at all.) ---
**Author:** ![MacTech](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MacTech](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacTech)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/110 "2006-05-11T15:26:55Z")
I was talking about this issue with some co-workers, and they favor wind farms for the most part (as do I, looking at the vids and photo mockups on the Cape Wind site, i don’t see what the big deal is, then again, I like windmills) the only issue they had was with birds getting killed by the windmills… i don’t see the problem, the windmills would only be killing the _stupid_ birds that were dumb enough to fly into the windmill(s) in the first place, therefore it would make the bird population _stronger_ by weeding out the morons… 😉 ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/111 "2006-05-11T16:21:56Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > Lordy, some things in those links are strange. West Virginians put up with **mountaintop removal coal mining** , but they bitch about a few wind farms? I’ll hazard a guess that coal mining probably employs quite a lot of West Virginians, far more than wind farms. Mountaintop removal mining is an abomination, but people will, understandably, nearly always defend a practice that keeps food on the table and a roof over their heads. > [@Kimstu](#): > > ISTM that most anti-turbine types are not objectively evaluating the pros and cons of wind farms in comparison to other energy sources, but instead just reacting with distaste against an industrial installation that’s new and unfamiliar. Right, but there’s also the issue of where these different types of power generation get placed. If the Cape Cod folks were offered a choice between having windmills and having a coal-fired power station sitting there off the coast, they’d probably go with the windmills. But they know that this isn’t the way the choice will be made. It’s windmills or nothing in that particular location, and they know that if they can defeat the windmills then they won’t have to put up with any power plant at all. It then becomes Someone Else’s Problem. Many of those opposed to this particular wind farm are not actually “anti-turbine types” at all. They’re “anti-turbine-where-i-have-to-look-at-them types.” ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/112 "2006-05-11T16:39:17Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Many of those opposed to this particular wind farm are not actually “anti-turbine types” at all. They’re “anti-turbine-where-i-have-to-look-at-them types.” Or possibly anti-turbine-where-i-have-to-look-at-them-while-I-spend-a-bloody-fortune-on-my-one-and-only-vacation types. As I’ve said before, I’d happily put up with them the other 51 weeks of the year. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/113 "2006-05-11T17:39:11Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > Or possibly anti-turbine-where-i-have-to-look-at-them-while-I-spend-a-bloody-fortune-on-my-one-and-only-vacation types. As I’ve said before, I’d happily put up with them the other 51 weeks of the year. Sure, but if we disqualify every possible windfarm site because someone doesn’t want to see turbines on their vacation, we may well be left with very few places to put them. In an ideal world we’d put wind farms and any other type of energy production in places where no-one would have to look at them, or in places that are already so ugly that it wouldn’t make a difference. But as i noted in one of the previous threads on this subject, you can’t just plonk a wind farm anywhere; specific conditions regarding average wind speed and duration have to be met in order to make this type of power generation possible. Not only that, but the place where the power is generated should ideally be close enough to the place where the power will be used to make the transmission infrastructure economically and environmentally viable. ---
**Author:** ![Plynck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Plynck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Plynck)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/114 "2006-05-11T17:48:40Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > You wouldn’t mind the sight of meat grinders in the ocean, and yet you live in a place where there are no fewer than two nail salons on every block. > > Gotcha. 😉 Well… see **EddyTeddyFreddy’s** comment above: > [@](#): > > …_anything_ would be an improvement on the City of Sin And I know that these comments were made in jest. However, the intent of my comment was that although [Lynn Beach](http://homepage.mac.com/mnassal/obp/nahant.html) is a wonderful recreation area for the City, I would still sacrifice a certain amount of the aesthetic value, knowing that wind farms were creating clean energy for the area. And sometimes it’s only one nail salon. Next to a hair salon. ---
**Author:** ![tdn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/94ad74/32.png) [@tdn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tdn)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/115 "2006-05-11T20:02:54Z")
> [@Plynck](#): > > And sometimes it’s only one nail salon. Next to a hair salon. Sorry, my bad. I also forgot to mention the lovely pizza shops. ---
**Author:** ![Loopydude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e56c9b/32.png) [@Loopydude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopydude)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/116 "2006-05-11T21:00:00Z")
> [@Plynck](#): > > And I know that these comments were made in jest. Do you? Lynn is generally understood to be an armpit. The sorts of folks who summer on the Cape expect human feces and used syringes to wash up regularly on your lovely beach. It’s OK to sully the views in Lynn, because it’s a shithole to begin with. But not Nantucket Sound, you see. That’s too precious. The real estate values tell the tale. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/117 "2006-05-11T21:06:13Z")
I live about a mile from the Chesapeake Bay. I wouldn’t at all mind having a row of wind turbines a mile from my house, as long as they were a mile in the opposite direction from the Bay. But put 'em along the shore of the Bay, or even within a quarter-mile of it, and we’ve got an argument. So I wouldn’t mind having them in my proverbial backyard - so long as they were in the less aesthetically troubling corner of it. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2006, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/118 "2006-05-11T21:28:51Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > In an ideal world we’d put wind farms and any other type of energy production in places where no-one would have to look at them, or **in places that are already so ugly that it wouldn’t make a difference.** Luckily, that’s just where they put up a huge [windfarm](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16966) in Southern California: just outside Banning, in the [San Gorgonio Pass](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Gorgonio_Pass), on the way to Palm Springs. The pass at the base of Mount San Jacinto has a pretty stiff breeze 320+ days a year, and the scenery is butt-ugly. Anything they build there can just make it prettier, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/119 "2006-05-12T02:03:33Z")
I don’t understand people who think wind turbines are ugly. I especially don’t understand _environmentalists_ who think they are ugly. Here in redneck Alberta, we put them up anywhere we can. And frankly, I think they’re beautiful. They’re sleek, aerodynamic, and I like the thought that they are there, quietly pulling clean power out of the air. There’s nothing ugly about them. If I lived in Martha’s Vineyard, I’d be proud to have them off the coast. I’d feel good about the fact that while I’m living large and wealthy, I could honestly say that most of my power needs were being generated by clean energy. And I’m not even a liberal. I would have thought that the people who lived there would be ecstatic, given that it’s a highly liberal area. Unless of course they are just obnoxious rich people who are only ‘liberal’ when it comes to other people’s money, and ‘environmentalist’ when it comes to other people’s habits. I wonder how big the engines are in Teddy Kennedy’s yacht? ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2006, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052/120 "2006-05-12T04:16:58Z")
> [@SisterCoyote](#): > > I was thinking this exact same thing about the wind farms in northern California, actually. And you _really_ have to be on a back road to see them, IME. Interstate 580 through the [Altamont Pass](http://www.highton.com/jpegs/altamontpass.jpg) is a back road? Who knew? Four lanes each way bumper to bumper in the morning and at night, and this is a back road? Damn dude, what do you consider a major highway? 😕 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-is-right-and-kennedys-wrong-liberal-heads-explode-over-cape-wind-project/356052.md?page=7)