Seeing Obama's incompetence with my own eyes

UPDATE 7/6/2012:

It seems that the Heritage Foundation link I used in this post to source my list of the government's green energy investment failures has gone belly-up.  This new link gives not only the same list, but numerous links to news stories about the failure of each company listed.

The family and I spent the last couple days in the... um... interesting... town of Santa Cruz, California.

Actually, I didn't seem to see the sheer number of absolutely insane street people that I saw in the late-'90s.  Oh, there were plenty of dirty, greasy guys and gals with nasty dreadlocks that looked like a bunch of turds hanging from their heads, but overall, my impression was that Santa Cruz has calmed down just a tad.  I could be wrong.

We took the long, scenic route to Santa Cruz - leaving Sacramento on I-80, crossing the Bay Bridge, taking I-280 across the peninsula, and then traveling along Highway 1 (Pacific Coast Highway) to Santa Cruz.

On the way home, we just wanted to get back to the house, so we took the dreaded Highway 17 to San Jose, and then traveled up I-880, which takes you up the East Bay.  It was while we were driving through the city of Fremont on I-880 that I saw a familiar sight up ahead:  The Solyndra building.  You remember Solyndra, don't you?  Obama blew $535 million of yours and my tax dollars on this company that he was aware was already failing when they received the money.  I knew Solyndra was headquarted in Fremont, but I had no idea that it was right along the 880 freeway.  I frantically asked my wife to get out her iPhone and snap some pics as we zoomed by.  Here is what she caught:

You know, if I were the Obama administration, I would use those fascistic strong-arm tactics for which they are known, and convince someone in charge to take down all the big Solyndra logo signs that adorn that absolutely massive building that sits right along the freeway.  On second thought, forget I said anything.  Leave it just the way it is.  Think of the thousands of commuters in the Lefty Loony Land of the East Bay as every day, they drive past this monument to Obama's green energy boondoggles.

And keep in mind folks that Solyndra is by no means the only failed so-called green energy project that received Obama's venture socialism money, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer.  I found this list at the Heritage Foundation's website that lists plenty of other boondoggles where Obama used the sweat of our brow to create something destined to fail:

• Evergreen Solar
• SpectraWatt
• Solyndra (received $535 million)
• Beacon Power (received $43 million)
• AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy
• Nevada Geothermal (received $98.5 million)
• SunPower (received $1.5 billion)
• First Solar (received $1.46 billion)
•  Babcock & Brown (an Australian company which received $178 million)
• Ener1 (subsidiary EnerDel received $118.5 million)
• Amonix (received 5.9 million)
• The National Renewable Energy Lab
• Fisker Automotive
• Abound Solar (received $400 million, only borrowed $70 million of that)
• Chevy Volt (taxpayers basically own GM)
• Solar Trust of America
• A123 Systems (received $279 million)
• Willard & Kelsey Solar Group (received $6 million)
• Johnson Controls (received $299 million)
• Schneider Electric (received $86 million)

Money well spent, eh?  Ugh.

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be."  -Thomas Jefferson