Negotiating the Price

It's almost closing time at the bar.  The man at the end of the bar has had his eye on the brunette at the corner table for about an hour.  Now that the crowd has mostly left, he walks over to her table.  After a brief conversation, he asks the woman if she would like to go back to his hotel room.  "Absolutely not," she replies.  The man says, "how about if I give you $1000?"  "Well, ok."  "Will you go with me for $10?"  The shocked woman says "what do you think I am?!"  The man replies, "we've already established that.  We're just negotiating the price."

Mary Landrieu, the current senator from Louisiana, has actually made the focus of her campaign for re-election the fact that she has brought the state millions of federal dollars for projects in the state.  While the general public, and finally a few Republicans, are calling for smaller federal government, and less government spending, Landrieu and other incumbents are promising more spending for their districts.  Why would they be making such promises?  Pretty simple, the American voter has become the woman in the bar.  And our price is going higher and higher.  Instead of electing representatives that hold the same beliefs, the American voter has been electing the politician that promises to bring home the most goodies. 

The small problem with this practice is the cost.  The cost keeps going up.  The man in the bar went broke long ago.  But he is still handing over more and more cash to get us to go back to his room.  At first he was taking the money out of our purse.  Well, that worked great for awhile.  Then we noticed our purse was empty.  When we started to complain, the man said the only way we would get our share of our money would be to go to his room!  And we fell for it.  Again and again and again. 

So, how do we get out of this cycle?  First of all, consider our money gone.  We're not going to get it back.  Lesson learned.  Elect representatives that actually know the Constitution and take their oath seriously.  Let politicians know that we can't be bought for any price.  In other words, let them know what we are, or more importantly, are not. 

Angels Among Us

I think it was my first post last summer, when I wrote that summers are great here in Gunnison, CO.  From Memorial Day through Labor Day, there is some event happening every weekend.  Good old all-American activities like a weekly farmer's market, local bands playing downtown each weekend, an Art in the Park festival, a super fireworks show, and the balloon festival.

This weekend is no exception, while maybe not quite as all-American as the previous weekends, this one is off to an interesting start.  This weekend more than 300 members of the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang are staying in town.  It's not quite like the old days when the town would empty when Bonnie and Clyde came to town.  But the town definitely prepared.  About 150 policemen and state troopers from other areas of the state came to provide extra law enforcement.  The strategy of the police seems to be to shadow each group of cycles wherever they go.  If you see more than five motorcycles going down the street, they have a police car alongside or behind.  Still, I have seen several arrests being made.  But overall, so far at least, not too much excitement.  Hopefully it stays that way. 

The Angels last came to town in 2002.  According to news reports, they were very well behaved.  In the three days there was only one murder!  Oh yeah, and a rape.  Guess the bar for good behavior is set a little low where the Hell's Angels are concerned.  As the national security director for one of my accounts said, "They are trying hard to remake their image, but for each picture you see of one of them with a Santa sack full of toys for kids, I can show you a picture of a dead body."  Kind of puts them back in perspective.  

My only other experience with the gang was with one of the members back in the 1980's when I had the book store.  One of my most regular customers was a guy named Charlie.  He was a Hell's Angel that had moved from California a few years earlier.  He looked just like you would picture a Hell's Angel.  Long stringy black hair, a leather hat, a leather vest with the Angel's colors on the back, big black leather boots, spiked leather gloves, and spiked leather armbands.  And of course, the cigar.  When I bought the store, I made it non-smoking.  Charlie had no problem with the new policy.  He just broke the cigar into pieces and chewed it.

Charlie came in just about every Sunday.  During football season, he had the habit of arriving just as the Cowboys (knew I had to work them in here, didn't you?) came on the radio.  And Charlie loved to talk.  He would talk for hours about mystery novels.  Mickey Spillane was his favorite.  I don't think I ever read a Spillane novel, but I knew the story line of all 100+.  He did turn me onto a a couple of good writers.  I especially liked the noir style of Jim Thompson that Charlie recommended.

What really made Charlie interesting was his mode of transportation.  When he came to Texas, he fell on some hard times.  An accident destroyed his motorcycle and left him with a bit of a limp.  He replaced his Harley with what we now call a "townie" bicycle.  If you aren't familiar with the townie, it is a throwback style of bicycle that looks like the bicycles that were popular in the 1950's and 1960's.  Especially in small college towns like Gunnison, townies are cool now.  In Texas in the mid and late 1980's bicycles weren't cool.  And townies especially weren't cool.  They were just old and cheap.  And to further add to the image of the leather and spike clad Hell's Angel riding through the city on an old style baby blue bicycle, add a wire basket to the handlebars.  Oh yeah, fill the basket with paperback mystery novels.

I once asked Charlie why he hadn't replaced his Harley.  He had a good job at a factory in Grand Prairie that made either Colt revolvers or ammunition, I can't quite remember which.  He was saving every cent possible to make his dream come true.  His goal was to buy a hearse and convert it to a home on wheels.  When I sold the book store, Charlie was still riding around Arlington, TX on an outdated rickety bicycle.  

One day, several years after I had last seen Charlie, I was driving in the usual heavy traffic near the campus in downtown Arlington.  While I was sitting in the left lane, a hearse passed me on the left and pulled into the left turn lane.  I glanced over at it and saw the famous Hell's Angel colors in the back window.  When my light turned green, I slowly passed the hearse and looked over.  The windows were covered with black curtains, each with the Harley Davidson logo.  The front window was rolled down and blue cigar smoke was rolling out.  There in the driver's seat, complete with scraggly beard, leather hat, and big smelly cigar sat Charlie looking as happy as could be.  

I would bet the back was filled with Mickey Spillane novels too.  I guess dreams do come true.  

A Nation of Cowards????

Our current Attorney General, Eric Holder, has been quoted as saying that America is a "nation of cowards when it comes to race."  

One of the bright spots in this early "WTH" moment has been the focus by some on the true history of race in our country.  First Glenn Beck brought David Barton to his show to give some true history of the contributions of black Americans (I refuse to hyphenate, we are all Americans) to the revolution.  One of my favorite segments was about James Armistead who was one of our country's first and most important spies.  He was one of many black patriots whose story was taught in American history classes, until Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive movement decided to remove their story from history in order to create a repressed class of citizens dependent on, or "owed" by the government.

I won't go into a rehash of Mr. Barton's biographies, but will mention two of my favorites from Texas history.  The first is the basis of a character in my favorite book, Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.  In the novel, the two former Texas Rangers, Gus and Call, depend on a former slave who has worked with and for them since their ranger days, Deets.  In the opening scene of the book, Deets is returning from a three day trip to San Antonio after making their bank deposits.  They send Deets because they trust him, and who would expect a black cowboy to be carrying that much cash?  Deets is based on a real hero of the old west, Bose Ikard.  Ikard was a hired hand, and former slave, who worked with and for Oliver Loving, and after Loving's death, Loving's partner, Charles Goodnight.  Gus and Call are partially based on Loving and Goodnight.    Goodnight said of Ikard, "he was my detective, banker, and everything else in Colorado, New Mexico, and any other wild country I was in."  When Ikard died, Goodnight had a granite marker engraved with the following epitaph, which will seem very familiar to Lonesome Dove fans:  "Bose Ikard served with me four years on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, never shirked a duty or disobeyed an order, rode with me in many stampedes, participated in three engagements with Comanches, splendid behavior."

Could anyone, black or white, ask for a better memorial?  Sounds like the rampant racism we were taught in history classes?  Hardly, and this was in Texas, shortly after the Civil War.  

The other story comes from a historical marker less than five miles from my parent's house in Young County, Texas.

 After reading this marker on one of my trips home, I did some research on Britt Johnson.  (Once again, thank you Al Gore for the internet!  You deserve a massage!)  Johnson was a former slave who became a respected and much sought after scout and mule driver.  While away on a trail drive, his brother and son were killed by raiding Kiowas and Comanches.  They also kidnapped his younger son and wife.  Johnson trailed the kidnappers until he found them.  He lived with them for a winter and negotiated the release of his family.  This act made him famous in the area where such raids and kidnappings were common.  He tracked down and either negotiated the release, or rescued victims of at least two other raids.  Unfortunately, this did not endear him to the Comanches and Kiowas.  As the marker above relates, the Kiowas eventually got their revenge on Johnson and two other black men who were accompanying him in Young County.  Johnson's exploits in the Elm Creek Raid, where Goodnight was also a major participant, were the basis for John Ford's movie, The Searchers, starring John Wayne as a character based on Britt Johnson.   

As these two stories illustrate, even in Texas, shortly after the Civil War, Americans "judged (others) based on the content of their character, not the color of their skin."  Just as Dr. Martin King dreamed.  Why is our current department of justice not living up to this heritage?  Is it possible that Mr. Holder and President Obama are cowards when it comes to the issue of race in America.  What would happen to their agenda if the race card were removed from their playbook?  I guess we can dream too.

Fourth of July and Winning

If you are ever nostalgic for the America that you remember from Leave It to Beaver and Father Knows Best, (when was the last time the media told us that Father does know best?), plan your summer vacation around visiting a small town on Independence Day.  I lived for maaany years in Arlington, TX.  It has been about 40 years since Arlington could have been considered a small town.  Still, it had a good parade and an excellent fireworks show.  But looking for a parking spot in a crowd of thousands of cars does not give you that nostalgic, patriotic feeling.  It mostly gave me a headache.

Last year, I wrote about the wonderful fireworks show, parade, and balloon festival here in Gunnison.  Just about 50 miles away is a very small town called Lake City.  I haven't seen their fireworks yet, but to me the main draw is the reading of the Declaration of Independence.   They have colonial re-enactors ring bells and performing a reading on the town square.  I think we all need to be reminded of our history and what the holiday is all about.

When I was a kid in Gruver, TX, we had a great celebration in the city park (yes, THE city park, there was only one).  They had a greased pole with a pocket knife taped to the top.  Anyone who could climb to the top got the knife.  When I was 11, the new kid in town, Russell Murphy made it.  I think they had used the same knife for the past five years.  No one had even come close to getting to the top.   The city workers also put pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters in the sandbox for a real life treasure hunt.  Rumor was that a kid found a silver dollar back in '72.  All I ever found was pennies and the occasional gift from stray cats.

I have mellowed with age, but until very recently, I was extremely competitive.  I once bragged to a co-worker that I beat my 10 year old daughter 32 - 10 in "slug bug / bruiser cruiser" on the way to work.  He was just as competitive.  His wife threatened to make him walk if he didn't stop counting PT cruisers on their drive.  Anyway, my competitive drive was still in its early stages back in Gruver.  I wasn't very athletic, but I really thought through the games.  One I was sure I would win was the shoe race.   In a shoe race, competitors take off their shoes and the judges mix them into a big pile at one end of the park.  The competitors return to the other end.  Then they race to the pile, put on their shoes and race back to the finish line.  In those pre-velcro days, I concluded that a lot of time was wasted tying the shoes.  So, I wore my cowboy boots, figuring that the loss of some of my already tortoise-like speed would be more than offset by not having to tie my sneakers.  When the shoes were piled, I discovered an unforeseen benefit - mine were the only boots in the pile!  When the whistle blew, we all ran for the pile.  I arrived in about the middle of the pack and immediately grabbed my boots, pulled them on and raced back.  But my friend, Clifton was also starting back and he was faster!  He also was a strategist - he had marked his white shoes with a red magic marker and didn't bother tying them.  So as we ran back toward the finish line, I was slipping all over the dried mid-summer straw that passes for grass in July in Texas.  Clifton was stopping every ten yards to put his shoes back on.  We traded the lead back and forth like NASCAR drivers on pit stops.  And as we slipped and tripped the last few yards, Curt passed us both, with his nice tightly tied PF Flyers.  Speed beats strategy every time.

My last chance at a blue ribbon was in the bicycle race.  As I said before, I was athletically challenged, so I didn't even come close to the blue ribbon, or the red, or the green.  I think I finished fifth out of eight.  My little sister, LeAnne, the most athletically gifted, but somehow the least competitive of all of us raced in the second grader's race.  She could not have cared less about winning.  So at the whistle, she took off at a leisurely pace and wove all over the street like a drunken sailor, waving to everyone she might possibly know.  She fell so far behind, I was almost embarrassed for her.  Or at least would have been if she were not my sister.   Then I learned how cruel life can be.  LeAnne was so far behind her race that the first grader's race started.  She finished just ahead of the first six year old to cross the line.  In fact, she was so far behind the last place finisher in her race, the judges thought she won the next race!  With a huge smile, she took her blue ribbon and proudly showed it to all her friends, and of course to all my friends.  Then, it occupied a prominent place on the bulletin board in her room.  Until it mysteriously disappeared.  Last summer our dad found the perfect sign to take the place of the ribbon in her game room.  It says, "I'm so far behind, it looks like I'm ahead."  Some people are just winners, no matter where and when they finish.  

Hobgoblins and Community Organizers

For some reason, I don't remember a lot of quotable lines from my college literature classes.  One I do remember is from Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, Self Reliance.  "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines."  Today, I think Emerson would add community organizers who become president to his list of those with hobgoblins. 

President Obama has shown a tendency to react from his gut.  From his first month in office when he made his off-teleprompter "it is apparent the police acted stupidly" remark, the president has to use his own words, acted stupidly and then stubbornly stood by those actions.  In the case of this remark, Obama was barely a month into office, and most of us were still giving him the benefit of the doubt.  He had no experience in a position where his every word and action was being watched and scrutinized.  So most of us gave him the chance to retract, or at least soften his remarks, especially since he admitted that he did not have "all the facts."  But, Emerson's hobgoblins got to the president.  He never backed off his comments.

Then we had Arizona passing state legislation making illegal immigration illegal in their state.  When asked for a reaction, President Obama called the legislation "misguided."  Without reading the legislation.  After learning that the law mirrored already existing federal law, the president stuck to his comments and went even further by ordering an investigation of the civil rights ramifications of the law.  A little reflection should lead "the smartest man in the room" to the conclusion that civil rights are applicable to citizens, and illegal immigrants by definition are not citizens, but the hobgoblins have struck again.  The federal government has decided to pursue legal action against the state.  Again, the president has had ample time to adjust his stance as he has learned the facts and learned the opinion of the voters.  But once again, he is remaining "foolishly consistent."

Last week Senator Jon Kyl told a town hall meeting that the president, in a private meeting, told Kyl that he had no reason to close the American borders, as citizens of border states and citizens in general, are begging him to do.  President Obama told Senator Kyl that if he closed the borders and enforced federal immigration laws, Congress would have no motivation to compromise on immigration reform, or amnesty.  Think this is a case of Kyl making up the president's quotes to advance Arizona's view?  Well once again, President Obama's got that hobgoblin issue.
 

More recently, in reaction to the British Petroleum leak in the Gulf of Mexico, the president announced a moratorium on drilling in the gulf.  Upon further review, the moratorium would do nothing but cost the region jobs, not only for the six months announced, but probably forever.  Some estimates of the loss of payroll, and tax revenue, reach the billions.  Those estimates do not include the loss caused by the leak itself.  So when a federal judge suspended the moratorium, the president had the perfect opportunity to adjust his stance and in essence, save both face and jobs.  He could have said something along the lines of "we tried, but a judge overturned our action.  That's the way checks and balances works."  He could then let the drilling continue, especially since this is the first spill in more than 4,000 wells drilled in the Gulf.  Instead of letting the judge's decision stand and moving on, within minutes of the announcement of the judge's decision, the Obama administration announced their decision to appeal the decision.  Not only is the government appealing the decision, but today Secretary of Interior Salazar announced a new moratorium!

Three days after the accident and resulting leak, the Dutch, Norwegians, and British offered to help with the clean up effort with tankers, skimmers, and booms.  The federal government declined the offers, citing the Jones Act.  The Jones Act requires all ships working between U.S. ports be American built, American flagged, and consist of American crews, all to protect unions.  While the Act has been suspended many times, the Obama administration refused to do so.  After more than two months of massive amounts of oil moving to beaches along the Gulf coast, commentators started questioning the application of the Jones Act.  The British and Dutch again offered their help with the clean up.  The president had the opportunity to exorcise his hobgoblins and suspend the Jones Act, but, once again, has acted foolishly consistently and refused the help.

We have been told that President Obama is one of most intelligent people ever to hold the office of president.  So, while is he repeatedly the victim of the hobgoblins of a little mind?  It could be that he knows all the facts, but is working to advance his agenda.  It's either part of his plan, or we were lied to all along and the president's not as intelligent as we were led to believe.  And if that's the case, what is the agenda of those who led us to believe we were electing "the smartest man in the room?"  I think we have more than hobgoblins to worry about.

Feel Better Now?

With BP's accident in the Gulf of Mexico, a lot of reports have referred back to 1989 and the spill of the Exxon Valdez.  So, here's a little history of the spill and its consequences.  First of all, Exxon paid for the cleanup, estimated at about $2 Billion.  In addition to the cleanup cost, Exxon paid about $6 billion in damages.  No one feels bad for Exxon, they deserved to pay for their negligence.  And it was negligence.  The captain was sleeping off a bender below deck and the third mate was navigating without a sonar.  The Valdez's sonar had been inoperable for over a year.

Now for the unforeseen consequences.  After paying out somewhere around $8 billion for the accident, Exxon's lobbyists went to the federal government to request limits to the damages an oil company would be liable for in the case of future accidents.  A Republican Congress passed a bill limiting future oil company's liability to $75 million in the case of future accidents.  The bill was signed into law by a Democratic president, Bill Clinton.  The law also gave the federal government final say on drilling locations.  Starting to get a little queasy?

Now come forward to 2008.  British Petroleum requested permission to drill in 500 (that's 5 hundred) feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Louisiana.  Louisiana's state government approves the plan.  The federal government then denies the request.  So, BP moves to its second option, a deep water project, 5,000 (that's 5 thousand) feet underwater to be specific.  You know what happened next.  An explosion and massive leak.

Three days after the accident, Norwegian, Dutch, and British companies offered use of their skimmers and booms to aid BP in the cleanup efforts.  The federal government declined the offer, citing the Jones Act which requires all ships working in U.S. waters to be American made, American flagged, and manned by American crews.  The Jones Act was a concession to unions in 1920,  as a protection to American shipbuilding jobs.  The Jones Act has been waived many times, most recently in the days after Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana, to accept aid from other countries.

Within a week of the accident, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, requested permission from the federal government to allow the state to build sand barrier walls between barrier islands off the coast of his state.  His request was denied, citing the need for further study of the affects of the proposed sand barriers.  After repeatedly denied requests to the federal government to allow the barriers, on June 14, Jindal ordered the National Guard to start building the barriers.  

For the first time in his 16+ month reign, the president started to receive criticism from the mainstream media, and some pressure from Democrats.  His get tough response?  Let's suspend all offshore drilling projects for at least six months.  The consequence?  It will only cost the region about 14,000 high paying jobs and untold payroll, and coincidentally tax revenue.  Again coincidentally, the deepwater drilling equipment will move on to other projects, notably in Brazil, where Petrobas stands to make huge money with its deepwater wells.  Oh yeah, the Petrobas projects will receive billions of dollars in aid from U.S. Export-Import Bank either through loans or loan guarantees.  Turns a U.S. disaster into a giant windfall for the Brazilian state-owned company, huh?  Also a nice turn of profit for one of Petrobas' large investors, George Soros.  Soros, again coincidentally, contributed thousands personally, and who knows how much through his various foundations to the presidential campaign of Barack Hussein Obama.  Another coincidence, Soros' socialist foundations promote the view of America as an "institutionally oppressive nation."  Just as a coincidental link to other hot issues of our time, his foundations also campaign for open borders and social benefits and amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Since destroying the economy of the region was not tough enough to satisfy the president's critics, he took on British Petroleum.  From the first day of the crisis, BP did everything possible to stop the leak.  They also said from the first day they would pay all legitimate claims.  The president said he didn't need to talk to the CEO of BP.  He said that in his experience, CEO's will tell you what you want to hear.  But the president's not interested in talk,  he wants action.  So, 58 days after the accident, the president meets with BP officials.  For 45 minutes.  The president is a busy man after all.  Lunch with Joe Biden after all.  That and an arm-twisting scheduled with senators who oppose his cap and trade scam legislation.  Give the man credit though.  In 45 minutes, the president got a promise of a $20 billion escrow account to be set up by BP to pay for claims.  Oh yeah, the account will be managed by the federal government.  The same government that handled the TARP theft and Stimulus ripoff so well.  That loud KA-CHING you just heard?  That came from the adding machines of unions all over the country.  You gulf shrimpers and resort owners better not hold your breath waiting for your money.   

Feel better now?

President Obama finally found out whose a$$ to kick. Yours.  Again. 

Free Market or Economic Freedom

Capitalism has become a dirty word.  Those greedy capitalists only want to get rich off your hard work, or by taking your money.  So, political strategists have recommended candidates avoid the terms capitalism or free market.  The new term is "economic freedom."  

I like the term, but think that the free market or capitalism refers to much more than just the economy.  As I have written before, our entire form of federal government was intended to encourage a free market among states.  The federal government is supposed to have extremely limited powers.  Policy is supposed to be determined on the state level.  For instance, if you want  a high tax rate, but a government that also takes care of your health care, retirement benefits, and tightly regulates other aspects of your life, you could choose to live in Massachusetts or California.  If you want little government regulation, low taxes, and few state provided benefits, you could choose to live in Texas or Montana.  The idea of the founders was to allow each individual state to choose the level of service and the rate of taxation for their state.  American citizens would choose where to live, based in part on state policies.  The system works when left alone.  The problem is that it is just human nature to interfere.  People in Massachusetts think those poor fools in Idaho aren't being treated fairly.  They have to pay for their own health care.  So they make it their mission to get the federal government involved in Idaho's affairs.  Soon, we have 50 (or 57, depending on your sources) states with the same policies and no freedom of choice.

Rand Paul, Republican nominee from Kentucky, has been criticized recently for his comments about 1960's civil rights legislation.  His statement was that he does not want it repealed, and if a senator at the time, he would have voted for it.  But, as a Libertarian (minimal government), he thinks the market would more effectively and permanently solve the problem of discrimination.


An excellent example of his theory is in, if you know me yet you should have guessed by now....... SPORTS!  One of the heroes of the civil rights movement is Jackie Robinson.  I would say that everyone knows the Jackie Robinson story by now, but I have very little faith left in the way history, or even what history, is being taught.  So, I'll just say that Robinson was the first black athlete in any of the major professional sports in America.  If you don't know his story, or just want a little more of his biography, click here.   So, what legislation was passed to force baseball to allow Jackie Robinson his chance to become a professional baseball player?  Would you believe none?  

That's right, no one forced Branch Rickey of the  Dodgers to give Robinson a chance.  Rickey saw a great talent in Robinson, and a great pool of talent that was only being utilized in the Negro League.  Not only would he get a great player and be the first to tap into a large number of talented players, his Dodgers would be the team of choice for a huge market of baseball fans - the black baseball fan.  While Branch Rickey may have been a civil rights proponent, his job was to sell tickets and win baseball games.  By signing Jackie Robinson, he did both.  The following year, Larry Doby was signed by the Cleveland Indians, becoming the first black player in the American League.  Soon black and Latino players were common in professional baseball.  As I said in yesterday's post, sports is a copycat business.  So it wasn't long before other professional sports followed baseball's lead.

The NFL did not enjoy the popularity of baseball and was not considered a major professional sport until the 1960's.  So the first black player in the NFL is hardly recognized.  Charles Follis played professional football for the Shelby Athletic Club in 1906, or possibly earlier.  Black players came and went from football rosters throughout the first half of the 20th century.  By the 1960's black players dominated the league.  In 1951, the NBA drafted three black players, the most famous being Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton.  Again, NBA rosters today are dominated by black players.  

So, why did the three major sports in America choose to employ black players years before civil rights legislation would have forced them to do so?  They were the most qualified candidates for the position.  They helped their employer make money - sell tickets, and be more productive - win games.  When the free market system is allowed to work unimpeded, it works as illustrated in sports.  People in business, as in sports, are interested in success.  They will do whatever is necessary to succeed.  Very few successful businessmen will allow a personal prejudice to influence their business decisions.  And if they do, the market will eventually eliminate them.  Without influence from government regulations.  

Life as Sport

Fans are constantly reminded that the NBA, or NFL, or whatever league is a copycat league.  In the mid 1970's, Tom Landry brings back the shotgun formation to the NFL.  Soon every team in the league is using the formation.  Jerry Glanville used a maximum pressure defense with his "Grits Blitz" philosophy in Atlanta.  Soon Mike Ditka's Bears are dominating the league with their pressure 46 defense.  In baseball, teams have tried with varying degrees of success to copy Billy Beane's "Moneyball" style of management to build teams on a budget.

Pat Riley won three championships with the Lakers before moving on to the New York Knicks.  His New York team did not have the talent Riley was accustomed to coaching, so he moved to a defensive philosophy.  His Knick teams were built around an aggressive, very physical defense.  Their philosophy boiled down to "foul them on every possession.  The referees, not only won't call every foul, but they will soon call fewer fouls as they become accustomed to the physical play.  It was a variation of the Overton Window theory I wrote about a couple of months ago.  Riley's Knicks were successful, at least until they ran into either Jordan's Bulls or Olajuwon's Rockets in the playoffs.

A few years later, Bill Belichick used the same tactic to beat the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl.  The Rams used their high powered passing offense, known as the "Greatest Show on Turf," to win a Super Bowl and were favored to beat Belichick's Patriots.  Belichick knew his defensive backs were no match for the Ram's speed receivers, so his defensive backs held the Ram's receivers on virtually every play.  After a couple of calls, the referees stopped calling the violation.  The Ram receivers were frustrated and the Patriots won a close game.

Our president is an admitted sports fan.  He learned the lessons of Belichick and Riley.  Just keep hitting the public with outrageous tax after outrageous policy after outrageous decision and soon we will stop calling him on it.  Remember the outrage when the stimulus package was passed with no Republican support?  Followed by an outright takeover of the largest automaker in the nation?  Followed by "the police acted stupidly" comment?  Followed by an "apology tour" of the middle east?  Followed by the health care takeover?  Followed by public condemnation of Arizona's "misguided" immigration law (that neither he nor his attorney general had yet read)?  Followed by a lack of interest in helping the Louisiana governor prepare for the arrival of oil from the worst environmental accident in U.S. history?  Followed by a drilling moratorium that will cost the same regions affected by the spill thousands of jobs and millions of dollars?  Now, about to be followed by a cap and trade, energy independence, clean energy, whatever they are calling it today, legislation that will effectively take over the energy industry in the country.   Rumored to soon be followed by turning against Israel and its right to defend itself against terrorist neighbors. 

We are the referees.  We can't let this administration keep getting away with the violations of our rights and principles.  We've got to keep blowing the whistle until they stop.

Got a Funny Feeling?

Survival books, whether they be outdoor survival, or about surviving in the city, tell you to trust your instincts.  We can all sense danger, it's just that we usually ignore our instincts.  As Americans, we trust until we are given a reason not to trust.  That makes us easy targets for everything from e-mails from Nicaraguan check-cashing scams, to 9/11 terrorists taking flying lessons in our country.  Or for that matter, immigrants entering our country illegally, counting on us to let them stay.  Our trust makes us an easy target.

So, let's put a couple of things in writing and see if it gives us a "funny" feeling.  I'm not even going to list all our president's socialist/communist/maoist advisers.  That's so old that we don't even get any feeling about it.  So let's start with the president's reaction to the incident involving the D.C. police and Harvard professor Gates.  When asked for a reaction, President Obama said, "I don't have any details, but it is apparent that the police acted stupidly."  I don't have any facts, but I have a strong opinion anyway.  Kind of funny coming from the most powerful leader in the free world, huh?  

President Obama on his cap and trade legislation, changed to green job creation legislation, now changed to American energy independence legislation:  "under my plan, the cost of electricity would necessarily skyrocket."  What politician in their right mind would say his plans would make any utility cost, not just increase, but "skyrocket?"  Seems like he is not worried about our support.  It's like the issue has already been decided.  And why would he want it to take effect during the worst recession of the lifetime of the average American and before an already hotly contested midterm election?  A little funny, huh?  Then we learn that the president was the conduit for the Joyce Foundation's grant to start the only energy exchange in the United States, and that he worked on the grant while still an unknown state senator.  A little funny.  A little, very little actually, research is required to learn that other investors in the Chicago Climate Exchange are a company with Al Gore on the board (An Inconvenient Truth, huh Al?); a bank, Goldman Sachs, who not only was a major contributor to the economic recession, but also received huge taxpayer funded bailouts; and several of the board members of the Chicago Climate Exchange came from Goldman Sachs.  Funny.  

Exxon-Mobil decided a couple of years ago not to form a separate department to do research for alternate forms of energy.  They decided it was best to do what they have always done, look for oil.  Seeing how fast the world is changing, it seemed a little funny that they would not at least hedge their bets by starting to adapt to future alternative energy demands.  Fuji Films and Kodak are examples of how quickly an established company can go from the top to broke by not being on the leading edge of innovation.  But Exxon-Mobil seemed oblivious to the danger of falling behind.  Funny.

One of the president's first acts when he took office was to freeze leasing on shallow water offshore oil drilling, and a federal takeover, or much tighter restrictions of western land where drilling was planned, or already taking place.  No freeze on deepwater drilling though.  Oil companies complained a little, but were strangely quieter than you would expect about the restrictions.  Some just adapted and went to more deepwater drilling projects.  Now we all know what happened with British Petroleum's well in the Gulf of Mexico.  Strangely enough, the president was very reasonable in his early reaction.  He said BP would be responsible for the clean-up and loss of business revenue caused by the explosion and leak.  Again, strangely enough, BP has seemed relatively unconcerned about the cost of the lost rig, its eleven employees killed, the loss of sales of a minimum 5000 barrels of oil a day, at $70+ per barrel for more than 40 days and counting, that turns into real money pretty quickly.  Kind of funny how calm and reasonable BP has been about this loss, and the potential cost of the clean up.  Funny too how unconcerned about the huge decline in their stock market value they have been.

Now, all offshore drilling leases have been frozen for a minimum of 6 months.  Effectively a minimum of a year for projects off the coast of Alaska where many projects had been planned.  Land-based drilling restrictions still have not been eased to compensate.  The cap and trade bill in the senate has now been re-named an American Energy Independence bill, and it still will cause costs to skyrocket.  But little to no complaints or comments from the media or oil companies like Exxon-Mobil or British Petroleum who would potentially be hurt the most by the legislation.  Funny.

The Chicago Climate Exchange estimates business transactions of $10 trillion a year if the legislation passes.  They stand to make a boatload, make that an oil tankerload, of money if the legislation passes.  Yet, only a couple of days after the Canadian Free Press ran stories showing the suspicious links of the Exchange to the president, his backers and advisers, to Goldman Sachs, to Al Gore, and more, the founders of the Exchange sold their controlling interest.  Funny.  Sold their interest to an Atlanta based company called Intercontinental Exchange (ICE on the New York Stock Exchange).  Thirty minutes on their site and a couple of business news sites and you will learn that major shareholders in ICE include Exxon-Mobil.  Funny.  British Petroleum holds a large share.  That's funny.  Why isn't MSNBC investigating?  General Electric holds a big piece of ICE.  General Electric owns all the NBC networks.  Now that's funny.

For as long as I can remember, oil prices have gone up around Memorial Day, as Americans hit the road for summer vacations.  Oil prices traditionally go up when hurricane season arrives in June and potentially threatens to interfere with our coastal refineries and oil shipments.  Oil prices always go up with increased regulation, like the recent offshore freezes by the president.  Oil prices always go up when tension in the middle east increases, like it has with the recent incident with Israel blockade of Gaza.  So, in the past 60 days, we have had the worst offshore drilling accident in U.S. history, followed by tightened government restrictions, followed by the arrival of summer vacation season, followed by the start of hurricane season in the Gulf, topped off by extreme tension in the middle east.  Oil prices have gone down in that time.  That's funny.

That's just the oil-related funny feelings.  Throw in the funny worldwide and media reaction to Israel's defending itself against terrorist organizations whose goal is the absolute annihilation  of Israel.  Add the president's funny labeling of Arizona's immigration law as "misguided" before he, his attorney general, his Homeland Security secretary, or anyone else in the administration had even read it.  Add the continued criticism of the law even though an estimated 65% of Americans and over 70% of registered voters nationwide support the law.  Add the passage of a health care law that over 60% of registered voters oppose; a bill whose cost upon analysis by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office keeps going up.  And finally add the seeming indifference to an unemployment rate staying near 10%, even with funny hiring practices by the Census department reducing the number of unemployed temporarily.

We should have a very funny feeling about all this.  Either they have another crisis planned that they will take advantage of to keep and increase their control, or this Democratic/Progressive Congress and President are the political equivalent of a suicide bomber that is just trying to do as much damage and leave as big a hole as possible when all this blows up.  I have a funny feeling that a large hole is not their goal.      

Tell Me, Who Are You?

Here's my daily football reference.  The featured band at this past year's Super Bowl was The Who.  Thanks to CSI on television, their most well-known song is Who Are You.  That's a question we should be hearing a lot between now and November's elections.  

I read a lot of news and opinions from sites as diverse as Big Government and The Huffington Post.  Even more informative than the articles themselves are the comments that follow.  On one site, you will see a lot of "Obama's the anti-christ" type comments.  Of course on the other, they claim that it's all Bush's fault, you racist!  Read enough of the comments, and you really start to worry about where our country is heading, and even more importantly, why our politicians are encouraging the division.  There is very little discussion of the topic.  Mainly a lot of name-calling.  Both sides of our national arguments strongly believe they are right, and that the other side is stupid, evil, or possibly just stupidly evil.

In the past four months or so, I have become a Glenn Beck fan.  The thing that first attracted me to his show was his level-headedness.  He would lay out the facts, tell his listeners to check them out for themselves, and then decide for themselves.  He has never, at least that I have heard, read, or seen, said that our president or his supporters were evil.  Beck has repeatedly said that they have an agenda for the transformation of America.  That happens to be a progressive/socialist agenda and they have been very upfront about their intentions, but only if you are listening.  The progressives truly believe that their plan is what is best for America.  Beck has also said that he believed that when he laid out the facts, the national media would take the story and run with it and the American public would wake up.  Well, the national media has not covered the story.  They seem to be part of the progressive/socialist movement.  So then Beck laid out the connections between the media (GE-owned NBC networks), the president, Al Gore, Fannie Mae, the economic collapse, the global warming hoax,  the cap and trade legislation, and the trillions of dollars the legislation would bring to each of them.  Still no public outrage.

So, for the sake of comparison, say you see flames bursting out of the upstairs window of a crowded theater.  You run inside yelling "fire!!!"  Only a few patrons glance your direction.  So you yell louder.  Still no response.  You run outside, take a picture with your handy dandy cell phone camera.  Run back inside, waving the photo over your head, while still screaming "fire" at the top of your lungs.  When only a couple of patrons follow you outside, you get mad.  Now, instead of trying to inform the movie-goers of the danger they are in, you start name-calling.  "Moron" comes to mind.  How can they not see the peril.  They just must be stupid.  Maybe in reality, they are very cold-natured.  Burning the theater for warmth is the best idea they have.  They truly believe you are a conspiracy theory loving idiot; they are not trying to kill everyone.  A really big fire is the best way to get warm.

Ok, it's a stretch.  But that's where we are as a nation.  While Beck and others are yelling "socialism, you idiots," Obama, Ayers, Van Jones, and NBC are yelling, "we know, you idiots!"  We've got stop the name-calling and birth certificate checking and educate ourselves and those great masses of uninformed about what is really at stake.  Progressive sounds good.  We all like progress, right?  Well, kind of like the change we were promised, we'd better find out what we are progressing toward.  History does not paint a very pretty picture of past socialist movements.  

And history is what we all need to learn.  A big part of the country is waking up to the fact that the progressive movement began to change our history almost a century ago.  The changes to the Texas curriculum could be a start in the change back to the truth.  David Barton was part of the board that made the changes.  Check out his book, Original Intent for the real history of our founders, especially their belief that they were led by God.  As Barton says repeatedly, the founders were Christians.  Our country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles.  The founders did not believe in government sponsoring a religion, but neither was religion banned from government.  

Another extremely hot topic is race.  So, take a look at Barton's American History in Black and White.  It tells the true roles of black Americans in the formation of our country, starting with patriots who were instrumental in the winning of the revolution.  The 3/5 compromise (slaves only counted as 3/5 a citizen in deciding representation in Congress) was a powerful anti-slavery provision.  That's not Barton's opinion, Glenn Beck's, or mine.  That's the opinion of Frederick Douglas.  Just in case you went to public school between 1980 and today, Douglas was a former slave and abolitionist leader who became great friends with Abraham Lincoln.  At first glance, it looks like the founders believed that blacks should not count as a whole person.  Then think logically.  When counting population to determine representation, southern slave states wanted slaves counted.  Northern states said, they count when freed.  Southern states threatened not to sign the Constitution, so a 3/5 compromise was reached.  Founders such as Jefferson, Franklin, and John and Samuel Adams believed that slaves would be eventually freed in response to the free market and in order to increase southern states' representation.  But counting slaves for representation would only tilt the congress toward making slavery permanent.  When was the civil rights bill first passed?  How about during the Grant (R) administration.  Some was overthrown by courts, then the rest repealed by the Wilson (D) administration.  Who re-introduced it?  Eisenhower (R) re-introduced it.  It never made it out of a Democratic senate.  Kennedy(D) and Johnson(D) both voted against it.  The vast majority of Americans believe that Republicans have consistently fought against rights for minorities and that Democrats have been leaders in the fight for equality.  At least since President Lincoln (R) got it all started.  But we all know that he would be a Democrat today!

Those are just some of the things that were taught at one time.  We need to learn why the texts were changed and make sure all Americans know true American history.  Americans need to make informed decisions at the next election.  We need to know who we are and where we want to go.  We can't again vote for change without asking "change to what?"  Obama's idea of what America is, is not my idea of what America is.

Glenn Beck is very good at distilling issues to their core.  On his television show today, he said Americans need to look to the summer of 1969.  Are we the Americans that went to the moon?  Or are we the Americans who, three weeks after the moon landing, rolled in the mud smoking pot at Woodstock?  As Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey of The Who (they played at Woodstock by the way) asked, "Who are you?"

Capitalist Frogs

Most of us know the story about how to boil a frog.  Toss a live frog in boiling water, and it will jump right back out.  Even a frog's not stupid.  Put a frog in a pot of warm water, and it's comfortable.  When you turn on the burner under the pot, it adjusts to the slowly heating water.  And stays perfectly comfortable as it is boiled to death.   

Woodrow Wilson threw our capitalist society into the boiling water.  Americans, being at least as smart as your average tail-less amphibean, jumped out of that pot.  When FDR cranked up the heat, only because of the emergency brought on by the depression and then World War II, Americans endured the heat because it seemed to be the right thing to do.  But as soon as the twin crises passed, the country jumped out and swore that we'd never get back in!

So, we sat in our pot of water, perfectly comfortable in our little free enterprise beliefs.  Soon, our elected officials suggested that we subsidize farmers.  You know, pay them to not grow crops while the land recovered.  Kind of goes against free enterprise principles, but the water's fine, so a little heat can't hurt.  Minorities and women have been held down by our system for years, so let's give them a little help getting started.  I know, a real free market would eventually reward them if their work was worthwhile.  But that would take too long.  They deserve a break.  The water's barely warm, turn the heat up just a little.  No problem.

Nuclear power's really clean and we will never run out of it.  But wow, it's really expensive and innefficient.  Let's give them a little government money to get started.  The market will eventually catch up to our wisdom and pay us all back.  Turn up that burner a little more.  Well, the earth's getting a little too warm cold warm, we need some friendly energy.  Let's give a little tax money to solar panel makers and windmill generators.  Just to get them
started.  Getting warm yet?

Those darn rich Americans aren't giving their money to ACORN like they should.  Give them some tax money.  And then finally, Fannie, Freddie, AIG, Bank of America, those guys are all too big to fail.  We'd better throw boatloads of tax money at them, or  free enterprise will fall apart.  Now, it's definitely getting hot!

The water finally got hot enough to wake up us free enterprise frogs.  We've got to stop the subsidies and let the market decide who succeeds and who fails, from the doughnut shop on the corner all the way to the state level.  If Krispy Kreme knocks Sunshine out of the market, so be it.  Don't toss loads of money to Sunshine to keep them afloat.  If California keeps going further and further into debt to pay retirement benefits for 50 year old retirees, don't give them federal money to keep putting solar panels on their schools.  If $1000 of each Government Motors vehicle sale goes to retired union members, don't buy that Impala, unless of course, their car is $1000 better than the competition's.  And our tax dollars better not go to bail them out! 

A recent poll showed that just over 25% of respondents don't know that subsidies, bailouts, and welfare checks come from the taxpayers!  They think the government just has extra money laying around.  The report did not say how many of these 25% were actually members of congress.  Ribbit. 

Barack Hussein Obama is a Jewish Mother??

 A commentary on the average American's response to Arizona's new immigration law quoted poll results from Newsweek illustrating that Americans overwhelmingly support Arizona's position.  The question was phrased in several different ways.  In the different versions of the question, Americans' support of the law ranged from 65% to 78%.  The lowest positive rate was of the question, "would you support your state passing a similar law.  "Only" 58% answered yes.  So, why is everyone in the Obama administration criticizing the law, without ever reading it?  What is their goal?  In an already contentious mid-term election year, when most experts predict Democrats losing control of at least one branch of congress, why fly into the face of such overwhelming public opinion?


At the risk of sounding racist, I'm going to bring up the stereotypical Jewish mother.  You know how they are portrayed as using guilt to get their way with their children?  "No, son, you don't have to visit this Mother's day.  I know you are busy and all.  I wouldn't want to interfere with your hectic schedule.  I'm only 98, I'm sure I'll be around for many more Mother's days that I will be able to celebrate with you."


The president's big stick is our collective guilt over slavery, abolished about 145 years ago, by the way.  That's why he was never criticized or even challenged during his campaign.  Republicans were afraid of being labeled racist.  They couldn't question his choice of religion.  So what if he is a Muslim?  They couldn't question his choice of a pastor.  So what if he was a twenty year member of Jeremiah Wright's church that taught, among other outrages, that the 9/11 attacks were justified and even a message from God?  They couldn't question his relationship with domestic terrorists like Bill Ayers.  His political career started with a meeting in Ayers' basement, but that doesn't mean Obama knew him.  They couldn't question his wife's opinion of America when she said "for the first time in my life, I'm proud of America."  They couldn't even question his habit of voting "present" as a senator.  Any question or challenge was immediately met with charges of racism.  Even now, when Tea Party supporters carry signs with slogans such as "I want my country back," they are charged with using racist "code words."  And like the Jewish son, we get defensive and give in.

Now immigration policy is the hot topic.  Anyone who has read Arizona's law knows that it is only a repeat of current federal law.  The law only empowers local and state law enforcement to aid the federal government in enforcing current law.  It goes to great lengths to make illegal any type of racial profiling, with strictly worded definitions of restrictions of who can be questioned and why, and punishments for violating those restrictions.  So immediately after the law, actually a state bill at the time, was reported on national news, the president publicly called it misguided and requested a department of justice review of its legality.  Without ever reading it!  He was quickly followed with public condemnations of the law by his attorney general, homeland security secretary, and numerous governors and mayors, most of whom still claim not to have read the law!

Now, last week, the president of Mexico was invited to speak on the floor of the House of Representatives.  His topic?  The racist components of the United States immigration policy and specifically the Arizona law.  His speech was followed by a standing ovation by Democratic members of the House!  And remember this is a policy overwhelmingly favored by Americans.  What is the progressives' purpose in making these comments.  The whole guilt over slavery thing is getting a little tired to most Americans, so if that's the plan, it's obviously not working.  Or are they trying to divide the country even further.  It is apparent that many Americans will blindly follow the Democratic party no matter what.  So they are inclined to believe the charges of racism.  Some legal immigrants and minorities are genuinely worried about harassment.  And admittedly some have read the law, know that it mirrors federal law, but believe that the federal law should be changed.  So at the very least, the progressives seem to be trying to widen a gap between the approximately 60% who oppose them and the 40% who support them.  What could be their endgame?  The possibilities are a little scary to think about.

Here's a video of Representative McClintock's, a Republican congressman from California, response to Mexican president Calderon's speech last week.  


Just to be fair, California gets slammed a lot, but it's obviously not all California that is so completely screwed up.  Just the cities, as the case in most of the country.  It's just that the rest of us that have to pay for their stupidity!  Hope that wasn't too racist.  I'm feeling a little guilty.

My Hometown

On my drive to and from Texas, I had only three unscratched CD's, and no good radio for several hundred miles.  So these three CD's got a lot of playing time.  One was a collection of my favorites from Bruce Springsteen.  I can't remember the name of the music critic of the Dallas Morning News in the 1990's, but he had one of my favorite comments.  He said, "when it comes to poets in rock music, there's Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, and then there's many others who wish they were."  One of the songs from Springsteen that I love is My Hometown.  The song starts with the singer saying, "I'd sit on his lap in that big ol' Buick, Steer as we drove through town.  He'd tousle my hair and say son, take a good look around.  This is your hometown."  The song goes on to describe how the town declines with racial tensions and then the loss of jobs at the textile mill.  "Now main street's whitewashed windows and vacant stores.  Seems like there ain't  nobody wants to come down here no more."

Graham never, at least that I was aware of, had problems with race relations, but there has been plenty of upheaval with loss of jobs.  When I was a kid, Graham Magnetics and Hexcel were two of the largest employers in the town. Both closed shortly after I graduated from high school.  The other major industry, oil, has seen numerous ups and downs in my lifetime.  I drove around downtown and recognized very few stores that still had the same occupants from my childhood.  But few had whitewashed windows or were vacant stores.  What makes some areas bounce back from hard times, while others wait for the government to come rescue them? 

Check out Youtube for videos of Detroit today.  Not only is the city practically dead, but there is a sense of hopelessness.  None of the stories you hear or the articles you read talk about exciting new plans for developing the abandoned neighborhoods.  Everyone seems to be waiting around for, not a hand up, but a handout.  Or in the case of one widely circulated video, "get me some of that Obama money."  Why?

I think that it is all about the way the people in those cities and industries are educated.  Educated not only by their public schools, but by their unions.  "The man" is out to get the little guy.  "The man" uses the little guy to make million$, then tosses him aside when he's done.  The only hope for the little guy is the union.  They will stand up to "The man."  Oh yeah, be sure to elect democrat/progressives.  They work with the unions to make sure you won't be taken advantage of.  Of course, the union support will cost you.  You will have dues taken out of each check, but it's worth the money.  Who else is going to stand up for you?  You are helpless on your own.  Now the unions have all their candidates in place in Washington D.C.  They will take tax dollars out of your check too.  But only to pay for programs to protect you when "The man" fires you, takes his million$ and leaves Detroit.  Well, GM got its bailout.  Chrysler got its dollars.  The UAW seems to be doing fine, or at least the union itself is.  Not the little guy though.  Seems like the union took all its dues and gave them to elect its candidates.  The government took its taxes, and bailed out the union with them.  Where does that leave the little guy?  Trying to survive and mostly seeming to be waiting for their rescue by their beloved unions and caring elected officials.

In contrast, ranchers, farmers, and small oil companies are independent.  They go through just as many, if not more, economic ups and downs as any other industry.  But they survive and adapt.  Businesses close, but a new one steps in.  Drilling rigs sit idle for 5, 10 years or more.  But as soon as the business climate is healthy again, they are ready to work and thrive again.  All the while knowing that just as surely as a boom came, a bust is around the corner.  People help each other out when they can, because they realize that soon the tables will turn.  They know better than to count on the government or paid unions to rescue them.

It really seems like there are some tumultuous times ahead, as the self-reliant, mostly westerners (not including California or California lite aka Oregon) adapt and recover from the latest hard times.  Even in California, it seems that the smaller towns and farming/ranching communities are trying to do the right thing.  Unfortunately their state politics are dominated by their cities, who like the union dominated areas of the country wait for the payoff from their campaign contributions to bail them out.  There seems to be a great divide in the country now about things as basic as who we are, and what kind of country we want to live in.  It also seems that our elected officials in Washington are not trying to close this divide, but expand it.   We need to figure out why.  But first we have to make sure we know who we are, and what America is.

Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop

 Did you hear a pop, pop, pop?  Kind of like a series of champagne bottles being opened?  That is the sound of the media pulling their collective heads out of their collective....  Maybe I'd better use a light bulb metaphor.  So, did you see a few small lights coming on the past ten days or so?

A couple of weeks ago, in the Sunday Denver Post, I read an editorial.  The writer, whose name I can't remember, wrote about his surprise about local politics.  He quoted several stories from local meetings and elections.  He was surprised that even with all the distrust of Washington, especially here in the west, most people actually feel pretty good about their local government.  Several of his stories even involved raising local taxes for local issues.  His point was that people are willing to pay for what is important to them.  If it is handled locally.  Sound familiar?  Constitutional even?  It is easy to trust people you see everyday, whether you voted for them or not.  And on the flip side of the equation, it is hard to take advantage of constituents that you see frequently.  You don't steal from, or over-tax people you know, or people you have to answer to.  The writer quotes former speaker of the House, Tip O'Neill, "All politics are local."  A slightly less complex version of Jefferson's creed, 

Our country is too large to have all its affairs directed by a single government. Public servants at such a distance and from under the eye of their constituents . . . will invite the public agents to corruption, plunder, and waste. . . . What an augmentation of  the field for jobbing, speculating, plundering, office-building, and office-hunting would be produced by an assumption of all the state powers into the hands of the federal government.

Pop.  Pop.  


Last week three of the four editorials in the Sunday Denver Post were about the importance of local control of issues, not federal.

Pop.  Pop.  Pop.

Monday night, Brian Williams from NBC news, appeared on David Letterman.  He said that he felt the huge swing in the stock market last week had nothing to do with "fat fingers" or automated trading or any of the other official explanations given by analysts.  He said that all that was showing on monitors all over Wall Street was news video of the riots in Greece.  He said that he had the same sick feeling he had on 9/11.  

Pop.  Pop.  Pop.

Today's New York Times, yes, THE New York Times, you know None "of the news that's fit to print."  That New York Times.  They ran a story about the parallels between the path the current administration and its leaders (yes, leaders, not followers) are taking our country down and the situation in Greece that led to the current union-led violence.  Of course, the article never mentioned unions.  Some heads are buried so deep, it'll take some pulling to get them out.  

Keep listening for the pops.  I mean looking for the dim bulbs to brighten. 

Catching up

My vacation started this week.  I traveled to Texas to visit family.  Driving always gives me time to think.  My big discovery on this drive was that I have become one of the old people in hotels.  You know the old people that are up in the room next door, taking a shower while you are trying to sleep in?

Well, I was wide awake,taking a shower, and watching Sportscenter at 3:30 in the morning.  Luckily the rooms on each side of me were filled with high school age kids that were celebrating graduation.  Teens could sleep through Armageddon, so I didn't disturb anyone when I left at 4 to finally get my photos of the Cadillac ranch.  

 

 

Especially in the dark, the Cadillacs are barely recognizeable as Cadillacs.  The grafitti is the only interesting feature left.  It does make photography for a challenge, when they are for a family audience.  The ranch was originally in a site a couple of miles further east.  They were buried at an angle matching that of the great pyramids in Egypt.  The cars look like they were hurriedly re-planted in their new location, with no regard for what they originally were intended to represent.

Like so much in our me-first society, they are now just a venue the new Me generation to deface.  Maybe I am getting old.  Just another episode of old-timer's syndrome.

Hear the Crickets??

While looking up sources for yesterday's post about the president's link to CCX, and Al Gore's, and Goldman Sachs', I found one source for a few blogs about the subject.  It was a link to Canadian Free Press' site.  Today, I found page after page after page of links on a Google search.  Want to take a guess how many of them were from American newspaper sites?  How about two?  You would think that a story that links the president of the United States financially to a company that stands to earn $10 trillion annually if his legislation is passed would be front page news all over the country!  Then throw in a 10% share of the company being blamed for the financial crash that cost the country 11 million jobs (according to one congressman in today's congressional proceedings), Goldman Sachs.  Just for added interest, add a 5% stake in the mountain of money to a company headed up by Al "I invented the internet and won an Oscar and Nobel Prize" Gore.  Oh yeah, also link CCX to the United Nations and Fannie Mae, whose mismanagement was the real cause of the country's financial crash.  And not a word from any U.S. newspaper.  Except for the Washington Examiner, who basically summarized Glenn Beck's television program from Monday, with a Youtube video of Beck's blackboard.  And a line from the writer that she had verified as true Beck's claims.  Then the Dallas Morning News shows up on page 2 of the Google search.  The link goes to a comment page about the media's relationship with President Obama.  After scrolling down approximately three pages, there was a comment from a reader asking why no DMN investigation.  That's it.

Front and center all over the nation's media watchdogs, Sandra Bullock has adopted a baby!  How was she able to keep such a big secret????  Shocking!  Next we will learn that Kate Gosselin was voted off Dancing with the Stars.

Today I found several stories from British newspapers about the scandal.  I knew from the site I linked to yesterday that Fannie Mae owned the patent to a device that measures carbon output.  Guess what?  It was modified for use on manufacturers, but was originally designed to measure household carbon output.   Household output.  The plan calls for individual American homes to have a carbon cap.  Just like businesses, individuals can buy additional carbon certificates when they have reached their annual cap.  Buy the certificates from individuals in third world countries that don't create the emissions that Americans do.  According to the site, the cap would be set at 2500 pounds of carbon produced per year.  Over two times the amount produced by the average citizen of a third world country, but coincidentally only half the amount produced by the average American.  So basically Americans would be forced to purchase carbon certificates from people in India or China or South America, through the Chicago Climate Exchange of course.  After taking their cut, CCX would pass that American money on to the citizens of the unindustrialized countries.  In theory anyway.  Want to give odds on how much of that money makes it to the average citizen of Sri Lanka?

By the way, does your electric company give you the option to buy "green" energy, at a higher rate than traditional energy?  Green ain't cheap!  The idea is that it lowers your carbon output, so you won't exceed your cap so quickly.  Pro-choice again, give your money to the electric company or a Bangladesh villager (minus CCX;s cut of course).  Or you can pay to plant a tree, like the Vatican chose to do, in order to be carbon neutral.  Guess what, no trees were planted for the Vatican.  The payments were taken though!  Like Glenn Beck said, scamming the Pope pretty much guarantees some very warm temperatures in your future!

How's that for redistribution of wealth?  Mainly redistributed straight from your pocket to that of Barack Hussein Obama, Al Gore, Goldman Sachs, and Fannie Mae.  I guess the New York Times has laid off too many "reporters."  They missed this one.  Hear the crickets?  Oh, yeah, Sandra's baby is a healthy 3 month old boy.  And she has filed for divorce from Jesse.  Shocker!

Evil, yes. Stupid, no

It is the end of April.  Two feet of snow today in New York.  High of 35 here in Gunnison tomorrow.  So let's talk about global warming.  Like I wrote in a previous post about redneck snow skis, I know that cold weather halfway through spring does not mean that global warming isn't true.  But surely ten years of cooling temperatures does.  And false data by leading climate change (global warming is sooo 2009) researchers should make even the most rabid Al Gore sycophants wipe off their Kool-Aid mustaches.  

Then there's the cost.  The president himself says that under his plan, electric rates would "necessarily skyrocket."


So what exactly is cap and trade? Manufacturing produces carbon.  Carbon, according to the global warming "experts," leads to warming temperatures.  So, something must be done to discourage manufacturers from producing carbon.  Under this plan, a manufacturer would have a set amount of carbon emissions allowed as a by product of their business.  They would receive a certificate for that amount carbon emission.  If they go over the amount covered by their certificate, they can buy another manufacturer's certificate.  


Let's say that Cathy and I decide to go into the potato chip business.  We register as a potato chip manufacturer and receive our certificate to produce 2 tons of carbon dioxide.  Well, we are not really that into potato chips, so we only make a couple of batches of chips a year.  We didn't produce even an ounce of our allowable emissions.  Frito Lay, on the other hand, is realllly into potato chips.  They have produced all the carbon they are allowed, and they want to make even more chips.  They are selling a lot more chips than Cathy and me.  But they aren't allowed to make any more.  They have no more carbon certificates left.  Well, I'm smarter than the average rock, I'll sell them my unused carbon certificates.  Frito Lay is more than happy to buy them from me.


Small problem.  Who decides how much the certificates are worth?  How does Frito Lay find Larry and Cathy?  Where do they find even more?  It's not like there's an exchange similar to the New York Stock Exchange for carbon certificates.  Now, there would be a money making idea!  Guess what?  There is one!  It's the Chicago Climate Exchange or CCX!  Now there's some forward thinking folks.  If global warming weren't such a scam, I bet they could make some major bucks matching certificate buyers to certificate sellers, and of course taking their commission.  We are a capitalist society after all.  They could sell the certificates of manufacturers in third world countries to U.S. companies and basically give them boatloads of money (minus CCX's cut of course) for producing nothing!  CCX estimates they would process $10,000,000,000,000 in transactions.  A year.  That's $10 trillion a year.  That will buy a pretty nice house, won't it, Al Gore?  What's Al Gore's connection to this $10,000,000,000,000 a year business?  Oh, just a little thing.  He's on the board of a British company that owns a 5% share of Chicago Climate Exchange.  So, that's how he can afford such a non-environmentally friendly estate.  Compare Gore's estate to that of a nature-hating, let's melt the icecaps I love heat anyway George Bush.  When you stand to get even a piece of a 5% share of $10,000,000,000,000 a year, you can stand a little skyrocketing electric cost.

Nice story, but no one is forcing companies like Ford and DuPont, or local governments like the city of Chicago and Miami-Dade county to participate in this wonderful Enron-style scheme (they are already buying and selling certificates voluntarily so they can advertise as "carbon neutral"), right?  Not yet.  But that's the very basis of cap and trade legislation in front of Congress right now!  Requiring companies and local governments to participate.  Forcing the cost of their goods and services to skyrocket.  Amazing.  

So how does a start-up like Chicago Climate Exchange get started in 2003 with no cap and trade legislation on the horizon?  Through charitable, almost untraceable grants from a wonderful foundation called the Joyce Foundation.  They were supported by a Joyce Foundation board member who secured the funding for them.  The board member who was such a forward thinking visionary?  An up and coming Illinois state senator.  His name?  All together now, Barack Hussein Obama, mmm, mmm, mmm.


Now that should give you something to think about.  Here's a link detailing all the viper's nest of ties to the United Nations (where most of the global warming "research" came from).  Just for grins, let's throw in 5 CCX board members from Goldman Sachs, a 10% share in the company to Goldman Sachs, and a compleeeeetely coincidental link to Fannie Mae.  No conspiracy theory.  Facts.  It's mind-boggling.  Almost as mind-boggling as the fact that no U.S. newspaper or news organization has mentioned any of this.  The link refers to a Canadian Free Press site.  Free press, remember when America had one of those?  Another fact, NBC is owned by GE.  General Electric.  Think they might have a stake in this game?