An Electric, or at least Hybrid Mess

The Obama administration has never been confused for the Bush administration when it comes to energy policy.    Even as a presidential candidate, Senator Obama told reporters that under his policy, "electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket."  Now this is not like the Sarah Palin "quote" that she could see Russia from her front porch.  That was actually Tina Fey on Saturday Night Live spoofing Palin, although you couldn't convince thousands of Palin-haters of that fact.  Senator/candidate Obama actually said his plan would cause the cost of energy for every American, no matter what their income, to "necessarily skyrocket."  And no news organization or "journalist" asked him about this plan, before or after the the election.  In fact, outside of a few conservative radio talk show hosts, you will never hear anything at all about this plan.


All right, the president plans to make our electricity rates skyrocket.  Surely he won't mess with our other energy costs too, right?  What is the president's plan to reduce the emissions from our cars?  Well, first of all he had to takeover a car maker - GM.  Then he had to force GM to manufacture a car that the American buyer didn't want or need and that GM was not ready to manufacture, the all-electric Volt.  Now the Volt may be the "car of the future," as the president of GM - Barack Obama claimed.  But as one reviewer said, "only if your future is 40 miles away.  Actually 20 if you want to get back home again."  That's right, the Volt has a range of 40 miles in its all-electric version.  After these horrible reviews, Chevrolet announced that the Volt now has a greatly improved range.  They basically turned it into a hybrid.  You know the kind of car that Honda, Toyota, and Nissan have been producing for years.  Only it's smaller and not as reliable as the Honda, Toyota, or Nissan.  Oh yeah, it's more expensive too.  Only $40,000 for a subcompact car.  Who doesn't want to pay $40,000 for a Cavalier or Focus?  American car buyers, apparently.  In January and February combined Chevrolet sold 602 Volts, up from its double digit sales from each of the previous four months.  This incredible increase proved that Americans were starting to warm up to the idea of an overpriced, unreliable clown car, right?  Well not exactly.  They also announced sales of over 5,000 Tahoes.  If you are not familiar with the Tahoe; and judging from the lack of sales by the company, most Americans are not, the Tahoe has enough space to haul everyone in my hometown of Graham, TX and their luggage on a two week vacation.  With enough room leftover to pick up a few souvenirs on the trip.  While that be a slight exaggeration, it would take the vacation budget of Graham to buy the fuel needed for a long trip.  The new fuel-efficient hybrid version of the Tahoe gets 20 miles per gallon!  So obviously gas mileage is not a major concern for the American car buyer. 

So what is the president of GM, Barack Obama, to do to encourage Americans to pay too much for a car they don't really want?  Go back to the engineering drawing board and design an electric car big enough, reliable enough, and efficient enough that the buyer will be happy to pay for it?  Don't know what country you're from, but that's not Barack Obama's America!  His plan is to take taxpayer money and give it to anyone who buys an all-electric car, in the form of a $7,500 tax credit to the buyer.  That would make the Volt a $32,500 embarrassment, rather than a $40,000 embarrassment.  Well, apparently, not enough people that pay enough taxes (49% pay nothing at all, but that's for another post) to make a $7500 credit worthwhile fell for the scam.  Those folks generally travel more than 40 miles per trip and carry cargo larger than a bag of M&M's, so the Volt isn't too practical.  Another slight glitch in the plan - to get anyone to buy the Volt at any price, with any incentive, Chevrolet had to go back to the 1990's hybrid technology.  So now the credit has been re-written to include hybrids.  And rather than a tax credit, the Obama administration is planning take the $7,500 straight out of the dealer's overflowing bank account and give it to anyone who buys a Volt.  The dealer is then responsible for filing for reimbursement from the similiarly overflowing vaults of the United States Treasury.  Most auto dealers who dealt with the government in the "cash for clunkers" scam will tell you how excited they are to participate in this plan.

What's the next step in getting the public to buy government-produced electric cars?  How about $4+ per gallon for gasoline.  I'll get to that in my next post.

How's It Going Now?

I've had a difficult time writing anything lately.  Why?  Well, take a look at some of my posts from last spring.  A couple of times I wrote about how we, the average American, are being overwhelmed.  So much is being thrown at us, that we can't respond.  It is impossible to see everything being thrown our way, much less stop much of it.  And that is part of the plan - overwhelm and collapse the system.  To try to get back into the habit of writing, I decided to read my old posts and write about what has happened since they were written.

First of all, Obamacare.  Of course, you know it passed.  One result of its passage was the backlash by the voters.  As I wrote, more than 60% of Americans did not want the legislation.  After it was signed into law by the president, more than 65% want it repealed.  This became a huge issue in the November 2010 election.  As a result, the Republicans won control of the House of Representatives, narrowed the Democrat's majority in the Senate, and basically received a mandate from the voters to rein in the out of control progressive takeover of our lives.  Last night, Congress passed a budget plan that defunds the plan.  It will be brought up on the floor of the Senate next week, requiring Senators to go on the record supporting or opposing the legislation.

After the unexpected backlash against the healthcare takeover, the Democratic controlled House and Senate basically shut down.  They passed no more significant legislation for the rest of the year including no budget for 2011, which should have been passed before October 1, 2010.  Doing so would have put them on record for more spending, more taxes, and more loss of individual freedom for average Americans.  So the Democrats wisely gave up on governing and went into damage control mode.  They still lost a historic number of seats in the House and Senate in November.  The good news is that they had no stomach for forcing through their Cap and Tax legislation to save the planet from Global Warming  Climate Change  Human Caused Global Climate Variation.  The idea is not completely dead.  The president has said that he will pursue the matter through regulations by the EPA, bypassing the legislative branch altogether.  One of the most intricate spiderwebs of corruption to come out of research of the Cap and Tax legislation was the involvement in and potential  profit to, the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) by backers and investors like Goldman Sachs, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama (through the Joyce Foundation) and Al Gore.  Shortly after the story was broken by the Canadian Free Press, controlling interest in the CCX was sold to International Climate Exchange (ICE) in Atlanta.  Major investors in ICE include Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil, and British Petroleum.  While news on the issue has been quiet lately, a quick internet search (not using Google anymore, but that's for another post), CCX is still working towards its agenda, but mainly in Europe.  In November of 2010, ICE announced that it was suspending its trading of emissions credits in the United States through the CCX.    While Americans won the Cap and Tax battle, the Progressives have been able to bring the President's promise of "energy costs will necessarily skyrocket" to fruition through regulation of the domestic oil industry by the Department of the Interior.  I'll save the details on that for tomorrow's post.

And on the climate change front, it was announced yesterday, that the world just experienced its coolest March since 1994.  Cool not just because the NCAA's Final Four included both Butler and Virginia Commonwealth University, but because the temperature was cooler.

I'll finish up this one with a little more good news.   A 9.1 magnitude earthquake in Japan which caused a massive tsunami was followed by several major aftershocks in the following weeks, including a 7.4 magnitude shock last week.  In spite of these shocks and an increase in the population of military personnel on the island, Guam has yet to capsize, as Georgia congressman Hank Johnson worried.


Last I heard the island was still above water. Whew, another catastrophe averted!   And the obviously public school educated (again the topic of a future post) voters of Georgia's 3rd district once again elected the honorable Congressman Johnson to another term.  Sigh, still  lots of work to be done in the next election and not just in Georgia.  In my own state of Colorado, Senator Bennett was also re-elected.  I'm sure voter fraud had nothing to do with his slim victory.  The newly elected Republican Colorado Secretary of State has learned that at least 5,000 voters in the 2010 election were not eligible voters, and 10,000 registered voters in the state were not eligible.  No information was available for the 2008 election, when the governor, both state legislative houses, and the president all went to the Democratic party in a traditionally Republican state. 

Wow, and that's just a couple of issues.  More to come.

Dying of Thirst

As you could probably guess from the photograph at the top of my blog page, one of my favorite places is the Grand Canyon.  From the rim, the Colorado River is a small tranquil green thread.

When you get down to the riverside, especially at the river's entrance to the canyon, you see a much different river.  And this is below the dam that contains the mighty river at Lake Powell.

Imagine what the river was like before the dam.  The photo above was taken during one of the Park Service's releases of water at the dam, in order to mimic the river's pre-dam flow and rebuild the beaches in the canyon.  Early explorers described the river as "too thick to drink, too thin to farm."  The stretch through the canyon had some of the most dangerous rapids in America.

Today, rafting into the Grand Canyon from Lee's Ferry is a daily adventure taken by amateurs, from pre-teens to octogenarians, with a professional guide of course.  They raft the river in large inflatable rafts, holding 6 to 10 passengers.  These rafts are next to impossible to overturn, making the journey an adventure that seems dangerous, but is actually only minimally so.  

Now, imagine taking the voyage through the canyon in a wooden boat!  And the river is at pre-dam levels, with class IV rapids.  The year is 1867.  There are no towns along the river, so all your food and supplies must be carried on the boats.  There is no bridge at Lee's Ferry, so the entrance to this epic adventure is actually in Green River, Utah.  You will float for a little more than six weeks before even reaching Lee's Ferry and the entrance to the Grand Canyon. The land around the river is inhospitable high desert, sparsely inhabited.  Where there is any human settlement, it is generally Paiute or Ute tribes that really don't welcome white travelers.  Unless you are the lucky sort and you come across a Mormon settlement.  But then again, after their years of persecution in the East, they don't exactly welcome visitors with open arms.  So, once you are on the river, you stay on the river, come Hell or high water.  Chances are, you will experience both on this trip.  

The leader of the expedition is a Civil War veteran named John Wesley Powell.  He has no experience on this stretch of the Colorado, but then again, no one does.  He did explore the Mississippi and Ohio rivers as a young man, but that didn't prepare him for the rapids, extreme heat, dangerous Indians, and isolation he  experienced on this trip.  His crew had little or no experience on this or any other river.  They were, a journalist, two hunters, an editor, the editor's son, a cook, a Civil War captain, a Scotsman, and an English adventurer.  Oh, and Powell had lost most of his left arm to a minie ball in the battle of Shiloh in the Civil War (the photo below is Powell with a native American on one of his later trips in the area.  Old photographs are reversed when printed, so Powell is actually gesturing with his right arm). 

The inexperience of the men and their leader was evident almost immediately.  They loaded all their food and supplies into two boats, one of which broke apart in their first encounter with rapids only days into the trip.  A second boat was heavily damaged, but the men were able to repair it well enough to be used until they reached the real rapids weeks later.  They salvaged what food and supplies they could and spread them out amongst their remaining boats for the remainder of their expedition.  The men learned and adapted quickly and avoided any further disasters on the water.

They were not prepared for the desolate landscape surrounding them on the high desert though.  After the loss of half their food, they were more dependent on game they could hunt along the way.  Unfortunately, for most of the journey, there was no game.  Powell's diary describe scraping mold off their bacon before eating it; a scene I think of each time I check an expiration on the sliced turkey that has sat in my refrigerator for a week.   Three of the men lost confidence in their leader's ability to get them through the canyon in Utah.  They left the expedition and climbed out of the canyon to walk to one of the settlements they were sure was only days away on foot.  They were never heard from again.  Speculation is that they were killed by Paiute Indians who had earlier been attacked by settlers crossing their territory; or possibly massacred by a rogue band of Mormon settlers.

Powell and his remaining men successfully completed their journey through the canyon, mapping areas previously unknown by European settlers.  They also had numerous peaceful encounters with native Paiutes, many of whom shared corn and antelope with the travelers.  Powell, in this and later extensive travels in the area, completed an important anthropological study of tribes of the American southwest.  But his most important and lasting work concerned the land itself and its possible use.

As he learned through firsthand experience, water is the key to surviving and thriving in the American west.  He presented numerous recommendations to Washington D.C. on how farming techniques must be modified to be practical in the arid west.  He warned that farming techniques used successfully in Ohio and Mississippi would lead to massive erosion during the droughts that were common in the west.  Of course his recommendations were largely ignored until after the Dust Bowl days of the early 20th century.  He also advised that population growth be discouraged in the area.  The entire southwest from western Wyoming, through western Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and southern California all depended on one river - the Colorado.  Use of its water would necessarily be rationed for life in the area to survive.  Once again, he was, and is still ignored.  Las Vegas, with its dancing fountains and population of near a million; Phoenix with its green desert golf courses and population of well over a million; and Los Angeles with all its excesses and population of close to two million all depend on the now tame Colorado for their water.

How long will that last?

Why Did Davy Crockett Surrender 140 Years After the Alamo Fell?

It was a Sunday afternoon at my Grandma Lucille's house.  I was sitting in the recliner, reading the Wichita Falls newspaper when I found a story about one of my favorite historical figures - Davy Crockett.  Like most boys, especially Texans, I was fascinated by Crockett.  I remember driving Mrs. Armstrong crazy at the Gruver Public Library finding books about Crockett when I was in second grade.  Oddly enough, I don't remember ever seeing the Disney movies starring Fess Parker.  They were released before my time.  I did see the movie starring John Wayne as Crockett several times.  If only he had made it to the armory with the torch!
Most of my knowledge about the siege of the Alamo came from books.  I read everything I could find from the time I was able to read through now.  I even read Crockett's autobiography when I was in Jr. High.  So I knew about Davy Crockett.  He lived in a log cabin, first in Kentucky, and later in Tennessee.  He became famous as a hunter, explorer, and especially as a storyteller.  Even though he wasn't born Texan, he definitely mastered the art of the tall tale.  My favorite was his claim that he could stare at a raccoon until it would just give up and come out of a tree.  Once he mistook a knothole for a raccoon's eyes.  He stared at it for hours before realizing his mistake.  In fact, he stared at it for so long that the edges of the knothole were worn smooth.

I knew that he had been elected to Congress by Tennessee voters and was a follower of fellow Tennessean,  President Andrew Jackson.  Only recently did learn about his falling out with Jackson over Jackson's Indian Removal Act.  He left Tennessee for Texas after losing his bid for reelection.  He led a group of Tennessee volunteers to the Alamo, where they joined Texas revolutionaries in the defense of the old mission.  Of course, I knew that there were no Texan survivors of the siege at the Alamo.  And that they died fighting.  The story of the battle and the defender's fall came from history texts that referred to newspaper stories from the time of the battle and diaries of Mexican soldiers and the few civilian survivors of the Alamo.  All told the same story.  The defenders knew that Santa Anna had ordered that all the Texans be killed - "no quarter" would be given.  Numerous accounts told of seeing Crockett's body in the plaza surrounded by dead Mexican soldiers.

So, you can imagine how surprised and outraged I was to read the newspaper article saying that Crockett and a few other Texan soldiers surrendered and were executed by Santa Anna's officers.  Where did the newspaper get this information that contradicted all the other accounts of the battle?  Now, I was only about 12 years old and inclined not to believe the new account anyway.  But even a 12 year old was suspicious of a newly discovered diary of a Mexican officer who was not only at the Alamo, but almost every other major event of the Texas revolution.  Then I read that the "diary" had never been authenticated.  It was written on at least five different types of paper, some dating years after Texas' war for independence, all cut to the same size to fit into the bound diary.  Later I read that the officer, Jose Enrique de la Pena, was not mentioned in any other account of the battle of the Alamo or any other battle mentioned in his "diary."

Now 35 years after the translation of the diary and its publication under the title, With Santa Anna in Texas:  A Personal Narrative of the Revolution, this is the accepted version of the events at the Alamo.  Why would respected historians change the story based on a very questionable document that contradicts accounts written at the time of the battle?

I think there are a couple of possibilities.  The first is to further demonize Santa Anna.  He was incompetent, both as a military leader and as president of Mexico.  His cruelty was demonstrated in his orders to take no prisoners, not only at the Alamo, but at other battles such as Goliad.  Taking no prisoners in battle is cruel enough, but to execute survivors of a 13 day siege goes beyond cruel.  I'm not sure what purpose would be served by adding more evidence supporting Santa Anna's already wretched reputation.

So, how does the revised history change the view of Crockett?  Even while still alive, he was bigger than life.  He was the epitome of the American ideal of self-reliance and integrity.  He was elected to Congress because his story (both the real story and the tall tales) was already known by almost everyone in America.  As a congressman, he showed his true character.  His first speech mentioned in records of Congress concern an appeal for aid to farmers in Georgia that suffered through a long drought.  His response, "We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money."  He then donated his own money to help the farmers.  What would happen today if members of Congress followed Crockett's lead?

As I mentioned before, one of Crockett's biggest supporters was President Andrew Jackson, a fellow Tennessean.  As president, Jackson advocated some very questionable policies, especially those affecting American Indians.  One of the most controversial was the Indian Removal Act that would move the so-called civilized tribes from their land in Florida and Georgia to reservations further west.  Jackson expected Crockett's support, but Crockett refused to support his president in an action that he believed was wrong.  "I was also a supporter of this administration after it came into power, and until the Chief Magistrate changed the principles which he professed before his election. When he quitted those principles, I quit him. I am yet a Jackson man in principles, but not in name... I shall insist upon it that I am still a Jackson man, but General Jackson is not; he has become a Van Buren man."  His refusal to go against his principles cost him Jackson's support in his reelection campaign in Tennessee and he lost his bid.  His most famous quote came after his defeat, directed to Jackson and Jackson's followers in Congress, "You all may go to hell.  I am going to Texas."   

According to several accounts, Crockett and his Tennessee volunteers had numerous opportunities to escape during the siege of the Alamo.  He and a couple of the volunteers actually did leave one night and led a group of volunteers back into the compound.  So Crockett and the others had the chance to save their own lives, but committed their lives to their cause and actually followed through on their commitment.  I really liked Billy Bob Thornton's interpretation of Crockett.  He portrayed Crockett as being trapped by his reputation.  He says to Bowie, "I would like to drop over that wall and just disappear.  But those boys are watching me.  What would they do if I left?"  He led by example and felt responsible for his volunteers.  The last entry in his diary says it all.  "Pop, pop, pop! Bom, bom, bom! throughout the day. No time for memorandums now. Go ahead! Liberty and Independence forever." 5 March 1836.

I think it's obvious from his quotes and his actions why current politicians and leaders would try to diminish Crockett's image.  In fact one of the sites I looked at in my research was from Texas A&M university.  They said that Crockett was one of the country's first celebrities.  "Sort of an 1800's Paris Hilton."  Would any of our current leaders compare favorably to Crockett?  As I said in yesterday's post, only by knowing what others have done, will we know what we are capable of doing.

It's History Now

About a month ago I watched a television show on the network Animal Planet with my teenage daughter.  She is generally an above average student, at least when she is interested.  She loves anything related to animals, especially dogs and cats.  The show we watched was a survival type show.  The subject of the episode was a young man who was exploring the Amazon with his dog.  His dog's name was Livingstone.  I made the comment to my wife that most kids today wouldn't know why an explorer would name his dog "Livingstone," as in, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume."  I asked my daughter if she knew the story of Dr. Livingstone and Sir Stanley in Africa.  She had never heard of either.  That made me start to wonder about her knowledge of explorers in general.

I asked if she knew who Daniel Boone was.  No.  John Fremont?  No.  Lewis and Clarke?  Heard the names, but not sure, although I think she really does know their story if really pressed.  Sir Edmund Hillary?  Nope.  Admiral Peary?  Blank look.  I decided to explore her knowledge a little closer to present-day.  Know what John Glenn did?  Not a clue.  How about Neill Armstrong?  Finally the light came on!  "Yeah, I know him!  He sells those yellow bracelets!  He did something with bikes too, didn't he?"  Close.  That's Lance Armstrong.  He beat cancer and won the Tour de France bike race four straight times.  And started a foundation to raise money for cancer research with yellow (color of Tour d' France winner's jersey) bracelets.  Admirable, and one of the best athletes of my lifetime, but  I don't think his accomplishments quite reach the level of those of the first man to walk on the moon.

In school, I always enjoyed history, but didn't necessarily think it was one of the more important subjects taught.  What does a kid get out of history?  Nothing but a bunch of dates and names to memorize, right?  Now, I realize it is one of the more important subjects in school.  Not only do we need to know where we've been and where we came from, but we also need to know what we are capable of.  Both good and bad.  I've written before about how our view of history shapes our view of ourselves, and how changing history changes our present view.  Now, at least here in Colorado, history is not taught at all.  The upside to this discovery has been that it has renewed my interest in history.  The majority of the books on my Kindle are biographies, or historical novels.  My next posts will be history related, maybe with some views on why the subject is important, or why it is being changed.  Of course, as my wife will tell you, all, or at least the majority of the subjects will be from Texas or the American west.


By the way, in the Animal Planet show we watched, the explorer killed and ate his dog, Livingstone.  Made him sick.  Served him right.

You'll Put Your Eye Out!!!

My favorite Christmas movie is Christmas Story.  Like the kid in the movie, I always wanted a bb gun.  I think mine was a Daisy though.  Like the kid in the movie, mom was afraid I'd put my eye out.  Like the kid in the movie, I was persistent.  Like the kid in the movie, I finally got my gun.  I shot everything in sight.  My favorite target was our trash barrel.  I shot it laying on my belly commando style.  I shot it kneeling on one knee.  I tried to shoot it Rifleman  style, you know, twirling it to cock it and shoot in one motion.  How did he do that?  And I shot it standing too close.  And like the kid in the movie, the bb just didn't have the penetrating power I expected and bounced off the barrel right back into my glasses.  Fortunately, unlike the kid in the movie, my glasses didn't break.  But the incident sure got my attention.  After that I shot mostly cardboard boxes, which took more imagination to turn into German tanks.

My mom and sisters think I even looked like the kid in the movie.  They are getting a little old, because I know I was much cooler looking.  Must suck to get old.

Our President is THE BLACK KNIGHT

This post has absolutely nothing to do with race.  But watching the president today reacting to the shellacking he and his fellow progressives took yesterday, I was reminded of one of my all time favorite movie scenes.
 President Obama is now willing to call it a draw.  Now we can compromise.  "It's only a flesh wound!"

Tex Cobb vs. Whoopi Goldberg

In a desperate attempt to gain at least a little credibility with mainstream America, and a few ratings points in the process, The View featured a segment with Bill O'Reilly today.  In a discussion about the wisdom of building a mosque on the site of a building damaged during the attacks by Muslim extremists on 9/11/01, O'Reilly was insensitive enough to mention that the attacks were carried out by Muslims.  Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg predictably went ballistic.  These two deep thinkers are famous for such wonderful tolerant progressive rants such as Behar's claim that Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann is "anti-children." Bachmann and her husband have two children and have raised 23 foster children. While the "pro-children" Ms. Behar has raised only 25 fewer children, but who is counting?  One of Ms. Goldberg's finer moments came when she defended child molester, Roman Polanski by saying that essentially since he drugged the underage girl first, the act wasn't "Rape rape."

In today's episode with Bill O'Reilly, the two progressive spokespersons immediately went into a rabid attack, comparing Timothy McVeigh to the 9/11 terrorists, saying O'Reilly doesn't refer to McVeigh as the Christian bomber.  As Bill O'Reilly points out, Timothy McVeigh never claimed to be Christian, and absolutely never claimed his attack was in the name of Christianity.  The 9/11 murderers, on the other hand, did carry out their attacks in the name of Islam, albeit their own perverted extremist version of the religion.  Behar and Goldberg stood and walked off the set of the show before allowing O'Reilly to make his point.  It was ratings gold.  If Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg would only continue their protest, the show might actually become relevant.

When seeing the highlights of today's walkout, I was immediately reminded of boxer turned actor, Randall "Tex" Cobb.  Cobb fought several heavyweight championship matches in the early 1980's.  He once stated that his strategy was to let his opponent hit him in the face until he was completely exhausted, then Cobb would try to knock him out.  The match  for which Cobb is most famous, was in 1982 against heavyweight champion, Larry Holmes.  True to Cobb's strategy, Holmes pounded on Cobb's face for 15 rounds.  Problem for Cobb was that Holmes never tired.  And Cobb never fell.


Tex Cobb was never mistaken for Tom Cruise before the fight, but after the fight, he may have been mistaken for 200 pounds of ground meat.  Boxing was a major sport at the time, and the most famous boxing announcer was Howard Cosell.  Cosell was voted the most loved, and most hated sportscaster in America for ten straight years.  He was a regular on Friday night boxing and on Monday Night Football.  At the end of the Cobb vs. Holmes match, Cosell was so disgusted by the beating that Cobb received that he announced his retirement from announcing boxing matches.  When the beaten and bloody Cobb was told of Cosell's retirement, he responded, "I'll go another 15 rounds with Larry right now if Cosell will get off Monday Night Football too."

I think Bill O'Reilly more than held his own with Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg today.  He should volunteer to be a daily guest on The View, if Behar and Goldberg will stay retired!

America, we've got a problem. Really, we do this time.

In arson investigations, at least on TV, one of the first suspects is the person who reported the fire.  And then the people who help put out the fire, or who rescue the victims.  A few years ago, a huge wildfire burned thousands of acres in Arizona.  The fire, or actually a series of fires, was started by a firefighter.  He wanted the opportunity to be the hero who put out the fire.  About the same time, there was a similiar case in Colorado.  It's even more common in housing arson.  A firefighter, or more likely a firefighter wannabe,  creates a crisis in the hopes of coming to the rescue and becoming the hero.  And in the process gaining a job, a promotion, money, or at least publicity.

Next time we have a crisis in Washington D.C., we need to take a close look to see if it is a real crisis, and if it is, how was it created?  The perfect example is the housing crisis that brought about the current economic mess.  First of all, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were part of a Democratic congressional majority that forced banks to make high risk loans to people who could not qualify for housing loans, as part of the Fair Housing Act.  (As an aside, take a REALLLLLLLLY close look any bill that includes the word Fair and doesn't involve ferris wheels and corn dogs).  The promise to the banks was that the loans would be backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  While CSpan will generally result in a full-on slobbering nap, maybe we should all be making that network the top rated cable channel.  Here's an enlightening video from 2004.



So, they created the crisis, ignored the warnings about crisis, and then took billions, soon to be trillions, to fix the crisis.  And oh, yeah, blame the people who were sounding the warnings for the crisis!

Another example, how about the $854 billion dollars to create jobs to keep unemployment from going over 8% at the beginning of Obama's presidency.  Using their own numbers, which are very questionable if not outright lies, they created or saved 3.5 million jobs.  That means the federal government spent $244,400 for every job saved or created.  And unemployment still went to almost 10%, or 14.4% if you include those who became discouraged and just stopped looking or were unemployed for so long that they were no longer eligible to be counted.

And don't even get started on Global Warming, Climate Change, Man Caused Global Climate Disruption.  I've written about that DC Caused crisis several times, so I won't get into it again.  Here are three links.
Obama and Gore to profit from Cap and Trade  Why no media outrage about cap and trade?  Rednecks and global warming

How about financial reform?  Was that even on your radar?  Now, with the solution that passed in a 2000+ page law this summer, every one of your financial transactions is subject to scrutiny by the the government.  Student loan crisis?  Fixed, as part of the 2000+ healthcare law.  Yes, part of the HEALTHCARE law!  The healthcare law that 60% of Americans want repealed.  The healthcare law that 68% of Americans did not want passed.  Now, for a Golden Oldie, victims of rape and incest do not have access to abortion.  Was that really such a pervasive problem that the government needed to get involved?  I'd like to see some stats, but now, less than 30 years later, abortion is an accepted form of birth control.  Or in the words of this British pundit, "getting rid of a couple of cells."



With the election this November, we had better take steps to handle our own problems before the "firefighters" in DC burn down our whole country.

It's For Your Own Good

Seatbelts.  Helmets for motorcycle riders.  Driver's side airbags.  Passenger side airbags.  Infant rear facing car seats.  Toddler forward facing car seats.  Booster seats for children up to 75 pounds.  Side impact airbags.  All these advances made us safer when traveling on the highway.  The government mandated their use for the public safety.  The car companies were forced to make first seatbelts, then an increasing number of airbags, standard equipment on passenger cars and trucks.  Of course this increased the production cost of the vehicles, which is passed on to the buyer.  Most of don't have a problem paying for increased safety for ourselves and our families.  Especially when some of the cost is offset by a decrease in auto insurance rates.  Would the car makers have made these safety improvements without the government mandates?  Yes, they would.  Need an example?  How about antilock brakes.  Most cars today have antilock brakes.  No government was required.   The car companies touted the safety advantages of antilock brakes and the consumers were more than willing to pay the extra cost.  Insurance companies saw the benefits through reduced claims and passed the savings onto the policy holders who had the antilock brake option.  That's the way the free market works.  It might be a little slower than a government requirement, but that's the way our system is supposed to work.

Next example:  motorcycle helmets.  They are required by law in most states.  If they weren't, I believe most riders would wear helmets.  It's just the smart thing to do.  I remember in the early 1990's when the helmet issue was being voted upon in California.  Actor Gary Busey and rock star Billy Idol both did television ads against the law, promoting the freedom of choice.  Ironically, both were involved in serious accidents before the issue came to a vote.  Busey changed sides, but Idol did not.  When asked about why Billy Idol was still against wearing a helmet, Busey said, "he must have suffered more brain damage than I did."  Both could and should have done public service ads on the issue, but the market should be deciding the issue, not government.  And once again, insurance companies give a rate break to riders who wear helmets.  Safety and money are all the incentive needed for most people.  So what was the reasoning for making helmets, airbags, and seatbelts a government issue?  Money, of course.  See, a lot of people involved in accidents don't have health insurance or the means to pay for their own healthcare.  So that puts the burden on all of us.  We have to pay for their treatment.  So, obviously that means the government should require them to act in a responsible manner and wear a seatbelt or a helmet, or buy a car with airbags, and put their children in the appropriate car seat.  And we, the general public, bought the logic.

Next came helmets for bicyclists.  Same logic, adult cyclists aren't smart enough to take precautions, and parents don't care enough about their child's safety to require helments.  So, in many cities, the government steps in to prevent the smart part of the population from paying for the healthcare of the less intelligent. 

Now, with Obamacare, we will be truly paying for the healthcare of everyone.  If your neighbor goes to the hospital, you will be paying for his treatment through government mandated healthcare insurance.  So obviously it is in your best interest to keep your neighbor healthy.  Not just safe from accidents, but healthy.  Some cities are already going through citizen's trash to make sure there are no recyclables in the regular trash.  Is it difficult to take the next step?  City employees checking your trash for KFC bags?  Those double chicken and bacon sandwiches (no bread or lettuce) can't be good for your heart.  The government has to pay if you need a double bypass, so why can't they control your diet?  Again, if you think that's outrageous, just scan the internet for reports on the first lady's campaign against obesity.  No soft drinks in vending machines, first in schools, but now in city buildings.  Fries replaced by carrot sticks in Happy Meals, can the number one combo be far behind?  And do you really need cheese on that quarter pounder?  Does it really need to be a quarter pound?  I know, it's ridiculous.  It'll never happen here.  Or at least in a fiercely independent state like Texas, right?  Can't tell those Texans what to do.  They'll sell deep-fried Dr. Pepper and deep fried Twinkies at the State Fair.  D.C. won't be telling them what they can't eat.  Well, except in third grade, in the Houston area.  And only with really dangerous food like deep fried rat poison, right?   Or Jolly Ranchers.  Yes, I said Jolly Ranchers.  The evil third grader must have brought a truckload of Jolly Ranchers to school and got lectured by her teacher, right?  No, how about a trip to the principal's office and spending recess in detention, writing an essay as punishment for bringing a bag of Jolly Ranchers to school.  Oops, it wasn't a whole bag of Jolly Ranchers.  And the third grader didn't bring the candy to school.  She accepted one, ONE, piece of candy from a friend.

Still feel comfortable about where we are going as a country?  Gotta go, I smell bacon frying.  My neighbors may be calling 911.

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.